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OCT  TO  1920 


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BX    9931     .M36    v. 3 
Atwood,     I.    M.     1838-1917 
Revelation 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

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Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/revelation03atwo 


jHanuals  of  JFaitl)  anti  2:)utp. 

EDITED    BY    REV.  J.   S.   CANTWELL,   D.D. 


A  SERIES  of  short  books  in  exposition  of  prominent  teachings 
of  the  Universalist  Church,  and  the  moral  and  religious 
obligations  of  believers.  They  are  prepared  by  writers  selected  for 
their  ability  to  present  in  brief  compass  an  instructive  and  helpful 
Manual  on  the  subject  undertaken.  The  volumes  will  be  affirmative 
and  constructive  in  statement,  avoiding  controversy,  while  specifically 
unfolding  doctrines. 

The  Manuals  of  Faith  and  Duty  are  issued  at  intervals  of 
three  or  four  months.     Uniform  in  size,  style,  and  price. 

I.     THE  FATHEKHOOD   OF   GOD. 

By  Rev.  J.  Coleman  Adams,  D.D.,  Chicago. 

II.    JESUS   THE   CHRIST. 

By  Rev.  S.  Crane,  D.D.,  Norwalk,  O. 

III.    REVELATION. 

By  Rev.  I.  M.  Atwood,  D.D.,  President  of  the  Theological 
School,  Canton,  N.  Y. 

IV.     CHRIST  IN  THE  LIFE. 

By  Rev.  Warren  S.  Woodbridge,  Medford,  Mass. 

V.     SALVATION. 

By  Rev.  Orello  Cone,  D.D.,  President  of  Buchtel  College, 
Akron,  O. 

VI.     THE   BIRTH   FROM   ABOVE. 
By  Rev.  Charles  Pollen  Lee,  Charlestown,  Mass. 

No.  VII.  of  this  series  will  be  "The  Saviour  of  the  World," 
by  Rev.  C.  E.  Nash,  Akron,  O.  Other  volumes  and  writers  will 
be  announced  hereafter.        


published  by  the 

Universalist  Publishing  House, 

BOSTON,    MASS. 
Western   Branch:    69  Dearborn  Street,  Chicago. 


Jfianuals  of  iFaitl)  anti  Butg. 


Ko.  III.  ^iKft^  ^'^  ''^'''%\ 

OCT  13  1920 

REVELATION. 


BY 


ISAAC   M.  ATWOOD,  D.D., 

PRESIDENT     OF     THE     THEOLOGICAL     SCHOOL,     CANTON,     N.  Y. 


"God,  having  of  old  time  spoken  unto  the  fathers 
IN  the  prophets  by  divers  portions  and  in  divers  man- 
ners,   HATH    AT    THE    END    OF    THESE    DAYS    SPOKEN    UNTO    US 

IN  His  Son." 

Hebrews  i.  1,  2. 


BOSTON: 

UNIVERSALIST  PUBLISHING   HOUSE. 

1891. 


Copyright,  1889, 
By  the  Universalist  Publishing  Hodsb. 


SECOND     EDITION. 


©nibrrsttD  ^rcBS: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


CONTENTS. 

• 

Section  Page 

Introduction 5 

I.    The  Bible       11 

II.    Not  one  Book  but  Many 12 

III.  Versions     ,     .     .     .     » 13 

IV.  Theories  of  the  Book 15 

V.    Is  A  Special  Revelation  Necessary?    Is  it 

Probable? 21 

Vl.    Difficulties    . 28 

VII.     Miracle      .     • 36 

VIII.     Inspiration  and  Revelation 52 

IX.    Ends  which  Revelation  Subserves    ...  55 

X.     Theosophy  and  Revelation 11 

XI.     Interpretation  of  Scripture 82 

XII.    Authority  of  Scripture 86 

XIII.    Conclusion 89 


(BiiQzn  5at{)  obs£rbeti  tDitfj  singular  sa^ 
gacitg,  ti)at  f)e  6060  MizhzQ  tfje  Scripture 
to  i)ab£  proce£tJ£ti  from  J^im  infjo  is  t]^e 
auti)or  0f  nature,  mag  toell  eipect  to  finti 
tje  same  sort  of  tiifficulties  in  it  as  arc 
fount!  in  t{}c  constitution  of  nature;  antJ, 
in  a  like  tnag  of  reflection,  it  mag  hz  atrtJcU, 
t]&at  \)z  tol^o  tienies  ti^e  Scripture  to  fja&e 
teen  from  ©oti  upon  account  of  tfjcse  tiif= 
ficuUies,  mag,  for  ti^e  berg  same  reason,  tieng 
t{)e  inorlti  to  ftaije  hzzn  from  J^im. 

Bishop  Butler. 


KEVELATION. 


INTRODUCTION. 

THE  true  and  large  view  of  the  subject 
treated  in  these  pages  takes  in  the  fact 
that  Revelation  appears  in  nature,  history,  provi- 
dence, and  human  life.  The  exact  account  of 
Revelation  is  the  disclosure  of  God  to  man.  It 
is  important  to  a  correct  understanding  of  the 
department  of  this  wide  inquiry  to  which  this 
Manual  is  principally  devoted,  that  the  scope  of 
the  subject  be  adequately  grasped.  The  value  of 
the  particular  disclosures  with  which  our  Bible 
makes  us  acquainted  depends  on  the  reality  of 
the  revelations  made  through  other  channels. 
If  it  is  not  the  fact  that  God  reveals  himself 
in  the  outer  world,  in  experience,  and  in  the 
powers  and  laws  of  the  human  mind,  the  pre- 
sumption is  against  any  alleged  revelation  of 
himself.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  mind  opens 
to    the    conception    that    the    universe    is    the 


6  REVELATION. 

expression  of  Divine  ideas,  that  day  unto  day 
uttereth  speech,  without  voice,  and  that,  in  the 
phrase  of  Bushnell,  even  every  man's  life  is  a 
plan  of  God,  it  will  be  borne  easily  by  the  logic 
of  its  general  position  to  the  particular  conclu- 
sion implied  in  a  special  revelation.  For  it  must 
ever  be  kept  in  mind  that  the  study  of  nature 
and  history  only  then  predisposes  to  what  is  tech- 
nically termed  "  unbelief,"  when  it  is  pursued 
without  recognition  of  the  great  truth,  that  the 
visible  objects  and  products  are  manifestations 
of  Invisible  Power.  It  seems  to  be  true  that  thus 
far  in  its  history  the  modern  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion tends  to  materialism  ;  but  this  can  scarcely 
continue  to  be  its  predominant  effect.  As  it 
works  itself  clear  of  the  swaddling-bands  im- 
posed on  it  by  its  origin  and  first  use  in  science, 
and  comes  to  consciousness  in  philosophy,  it  will 
assert  with  more  and  more  distinctness  the  prin- 
ciple that  lies  at  its  heart,  namely,  the  ever  com- 
pleter expression  in  higher  visible  forms  of  an 
immanent  and  eternal  energy.  A  similar  course 
may  safely  be  predicted  for  other  studies  which 
at  this  moment  appear  to  be  leading  men's  minds 
to  dreary  negations  and  ultimate  nothingness. 
Bacon's  profound  observation  of  the  effect  of  the 


REVELATION.  7 

study  of  Nature  will  be  verified  in  the  whole  his- 
tory of  thought ;  and  spiritualism,  not  material- 
ism, be  the  philosophy  of  the  future. 

1.  The  underlying  assumption  in  Revelation, 
then,  is  the  existence  of  God.  It  seems  trivial 
to  say,  if  there  be  no  God  there  can  be  no  Reve- 
lation and  no  religion.  But  the  significance  of 
Revelation  will  depend  on  what  is  contained  in 
the  term  "  God."  If  we  mean  by  it  "  the  power 
with  which  we  are  everywhere  in  contact,"  or 
"  the  power  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness," or  "  the  stream  of  tendency,"  and  con- 
strue this  power  as  something  which  we  cannot 
more  closely  define  because  it  cannot  be  more 
distinctly  known,  Revelation  will  be  foreclosed. 
What  cannot  be  known  cannot  be  revealed.  No 
matter  by  what  metaphysics  the  conclusion  is 
reached  that  God  cannot  be  really  known, — 
whether  by  that  of  the  positivist  Comte,  or  of  the 
agnostic  Spencer,  or  of  the  absolutist  Fichte,  or  of 
the  pantheist  Spinoza,  or  of  the  materialist  Biich- 
ner,  or  of  the  idealist  Hartmann,  or  of  the  theist 
Hamilton,  —  the  truth  to  be  recognized  is,  that 
what  cannot  be  known  is  practically  non-existent. 

2.  Nor  is  the  situation  improved  by  saying 
that  God  is  real,  but  impersonal.     It  is  but  com- 


8  REVELATION. 

mon-sense  to  declare  that  an  impersonal  God  is 
no  God  at  all.  The  truth  of  this  affirmation  of 
the  unsophisticated  reason  is  copiously  illustrated 
in  the  writings  of  all  speculators  who  attempt  to 
go  on  the  hypothesis  of  an  impersonal  Deity. 
Either  the  constraint  of  logical  consistency  car- 
ries them  swiftly  along  into  pantheism,  atheism, 
or  materialism ;  or  they  escape  these  conclusions 
by  palpable  self-contradiction.  One  of  the  most 
insidious  delusions  discoverable  in  religious 
thought  is  the  notion  that  the  personal  recedes 
as  the  spiritual  emerges.  Just  the  contrary  is 
the  fact.  A  person  is  not  a  body,  but  a  spirit. 
It  is  in  spirit  that  personality  inheres.  You  do 
not  find  the  person  until  you  find  the  spirit.  To 
speak  of  "  the  great  Spirit  of  the  universe " 
under  the  notion  that  the  words  absolve  you 
from  the  obligation  to  think  of  God  as  a  per- 
son, is  to  miss  your  way  in  the  broadest  light. 
If  there  is  any  such  Spirit,  personality  is  insep- 
arable from  it.  The  moment  we  lose  our  hold 
on  God  as  a  Spiritual  Person,  whose  type  we 
have  in  the  spiritual  personality  of  man,  re- 
ligion begins  to  slip  from  us,  revelation  becomes 
impossible,  and  the  belief  in  human  immortality 
fades  into  fantasy. 


REVELATION.  9 

8.  The  conception  of  God  under  which  the 
topic  of  Revelation  is  treated  in  this  Manual  is 
of  "  a  Divine  Mind  and  Will  ruling  the  Universe, 
and  holding  moral  relations  with  mankind."  As 
such,  He  is  conceived  of  as  disclosing  himself  to 
man,  a  spiritual  person  of  the  same  type,  in  the 
course  and  constitution  of  Nature,  in  the  consti- 
tution of  man,  in  human  history,  in  the  laws  and 
life  of  the  spirit,  in  the  various  religions  of  man- 
kind, and  in  particular,  and  as  confirmatory  of 
all  the  others,  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments.  This  book,  however,  except 
as  to  this  Introduction,  is  confined  to  an  account 
of  what  is  known  as  the  Christian  Revelation. 

4.  Reflection  on  the  problem  will  soon  make 
it  apparent  that  Revelation,  whether  through  the 
outer  world,  man,  or  Christ,  can  only  be  such  to 
a  being  whose  inner  and  permanent  nature  is 
the  same  in  kind  as  that  of  the  Being  revealed. 
The  facts  might  be  just  what  they  are,  but  they 
would  have  no  meaning  to  a  being  incapable  of 
interpreting  them.  Knowledge  does  not  pass  be- 
tween beings  of  different  types  of  intelligence. 
If  God  is  of  one  nature  and  man  of  another,  it 
is  impossible  that  the  former  should  reveal  him- 
self to  the  latter.     As  well  expect  man  to  reveal 


10  REVELATION. 

himself  to  the  lion  or  the  ostrich.  There  is  no 
path  open  between  them.  But  on  the  hypothesis 
of  a  common  spiritual  nature  in  man  and  in 
God,  we  have  the  condition  of  a  revelation.  The 
great  doctrine  of  the  Old  Testament,  that  man 
is  made  in  the  image  of  God,  which  unfolds  in 
the  New  into  the  completer  and  more  engaging 
form,  man  the  child  of  God,  is,  therefore,  our 
warrant  for  considering  any  of  the  manifesta- 
tions of  the  Divine  power  and  wisdom,  whether 
in  the  universe  or  in  the  words  of  our  Bible,  as 
Revelation.  For  they  are  a  revelation  only  in  so 
far  as  they  are  disclosures  of  Grod  to  man.  And 
the  possibility  of  such  disclosure  hinges  on  the 
fact  that  man  is  a  spiritual  person,  as  God  is. 

To  gather  up  these  points  in  a  single  sentence, 
Revelation  is  to  be  looked  at  largely  as  the 
whole  process  of  Divine  manifestation  through 
all  channels ;  the  Being  revealed  is  to  be  appre- 
hended as  a  true  and  actual  Person ;  the  special 
disclosure  of  God  in  Christ  is  our  immediate 
theme ;  and  the  possibility  of  revelation  in  any 
form,  and,  as  a  consequence,  of  meaning  and 
value  to  our  present  study,  depends  on  the  fact 
of  an  essential  likeness  of  nature  in  man  and  in 
God. 


REVELATION.  11 

I.  —  The  Bible. 

The  view  which  we  have  taken  of  the  subject 
in  general  requires  us  to  answer,  why  we  pitch 
on  a  certain  book  as  containing,  rather  than 
other  books,  a  Revelation  ?  There  are  innumer- 
able books  :  the  world  is  filled  with  them.  Some 
of  them  are  of  great  antiquity,  some  are  of  rare 
worth,  some  contain  much  of  the  garnered  wis- 
dom of  the  race.  Why  select  the  Bible  as  the 
one  in  which  God  has  particularly  disclosed 
himself  ? 

1.  The  first  part  of  the  answer  is  in  the  fact 
that  the  selection  has  been  made  already,  and 
made  by  a  process  that  we  are  compelled  to  re- 
spect. No  class  or  set  of  people  gave  the  Bible 
its  pre-eminence  among  books.  By  a  natural 
process,  analogous  to  that  by  which  Homer  has 
his  place  in  classical  literature,  the  Bible  has 
taken  its  position  as  the  chief  religious  book  of 
mankind. 

2.  Again,  the  presumption  in  favor  of  the 
Bible,  created  by  its  place  in  religious  literature, 
is  supported  by  its  important  relation  to  the  chief 
institutions  of  society, — the  family,  government, 
the  church.     It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the 


12  REVELATION. 

Bible  is  historically  intertwined  with  the  social 
fabrics  that  have  been  taking  shape  for  thousands 
of  years ;  and  it  is  as  indispensable  to  them  as 
the  figure  to  a  lace. 

3.  Once  more,  the  contents  of  the  Bible,  its 
themes,  its  characters,  its  power  to  vitalize  the 
human  soul,  its  association  with  the  deepest  life 
of  two  hundred  generations,  separate  it  from  all 
other  books,  and  make  its  study  a  duty  where 
it  is  not  embraced  as  a  privilege.  It  would  be 
easy  to  fill  our  pages  with  testimony  of  which 
these  quaint  words  from  Robert  Boyle  are  a 
sample :  "  The  Bible  is  indeed  amongst  books 
what  the  diamond  is  amongst  stones,  —  the  pre- 
ciousest  and  the  sparklingest ;  the  most  apt  to 
scatter  light,  and  yet  the  solidest  and  most  proper 
to  make  impressions." 

II.  —  Not  one  Book,  but  Many. 

What  is  the  Bible  ?  It  is  not  one  book,  but 
many  books.  The  periods  of  authorship  range, 
in  the  Old  Testament,  from  about  1400  b.  c.  to 
400  B.  c. ;  and  in  the  New  from  the  year  60  a.  D. 
to  about  100  A.  D.  No  additions  have  been  made 
to  the  Old  Testament  since  the  formation  of  the 
canon,  which  could  not  have  been   later   than 


REVELATION.  13 

300  B.  c,  and  may  have  been  much  earlier.  The 
books  of  the  New  Testament  all  belong  to  the 
first  century.  The  questions,  whether  the  canon 
of  either  Testament  was  formed  by  authority ; 
whether  the  Divine  Spirit  presided  over  the  se- 
lection of  materials  for  the  historical  books,  and 
the  composition  of  the  statutory,  prophetical,  and 
poetical  books ;  whether  the  authorship  has  been 
correctly  ascribed  in  every  instance ;  whether 
some  books  were  not  excluded  that  should  have 
been  in  the  canon,  and  some  retained  that  should 
have  been  excluded,  —  it  is  impossible  to  here 
enter  into.  Nor  are  they  of  so  much  importance 
as  at  first  thought  they  might  seem.  For  the 
character  of  the  Bible,  or,  as  Jerome  called  it, 
*'  Holy  Library,"  its  influence  in  the  world,  its 
place  in  literature,  are  what  they  are,  however 
it  was  formed  ;  and  its  history  and  great  pre- 
eminence, proved  by  a  'posteriori  results,  seem 
to  vindicate  in  a  truly  remarkable  degree  the 
method,  whatever  it  was,  adopted  in  making 
up  the  collection. 

III.  —  Versions. 

When  we  speak  of  "  our  English  Bible,"  the 
words    imply   that    the   Bible   exists    in    other 


14  REVELATION. 

tongues,  and  suggest  the  inquiry,  In  what  lan- 
guage or  languages  were  the  various  books  origi- 
nally written  ?  The  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
produced  during  a  period  o£  about  a  thousand 
years,  were  all  written  originally  in  Hebrew.  Ver- 
sions of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  were  made  into 
Aramaic  (Targums),  Greek  (Septuagint),  Latin 
(Vulgate),  Syriac,  Ethiopic,  Arabic,  Egyptian, 
Armenian,  Gothic,  Slavonic,  and  some  other  lan- 
guages, as  well  as  into  English.  The  Aramaic 
and  Greek  were  made  before  the  Christian  era. 
The  others  were  made  at  the  same  time  or  in 
close  connection  with  versions  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  books  of  the  New  Testament,  with 
possibly  the  exception  of  an  original  Hebrew 
copy  of  the  Gospel  by  Matthew,  were  all  written 
originally  in  Hellenistic,  or  "New  Testament," 
Greek. 

The  subject  of  the  original  manuscripts  of  the 
books  of  both  Testaments,  of  the  amount  of  care 
used  in  their  transcription,  translation,  and  pre- 
servation, of  the  "  various  readings "  and  the 
reasons  for  them,  of  the  most  authentic  versions 
and  texts,  has  given  rise  to  a  separate  literature 
of  vast  proportions,  which,  in  the'  nature  of  the 
case,  can  be  studied  and  familiarly  known  only 


REVELATION.  15 

by  Biblical  scholars.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  here, 
that  the  results  of  the  labor  and  the  learning 
expended  on  this  branch  of  knowledge  permit 
us  to  rest  in  the  general  trustworthiness  of  the 
version  supplied  to  us  in  '•  our  English  Bible." 
We  might  even  go  further  and  describe  it  as, 
for  the  most  part,  remarkably  accurate,  while  its 
literary  form  alone  constitutes  it  a  classic. ^ 

TV.  —  Theories  of  the  Book. 

1.  Holding  that  the  Bible,  in  a  manner  pe- 
culiar to  itself,  gives  evidence  of  a  Revelation, 
precisely  what  view  shall  we  take  of  the  content 
and  character  of  the  Revelation  ?  It  is  in  place 
to  note  here  the   principal   theories   that   have 

1  This  remark  is  made  with  the  Authorized  Version  in 
mind  ;  but  it  is  applicable  to  the  Eevised  Version,  which,  while 
approximating  more  nearly  literal  accuracy,  does  not  depart 
from  the  version  of  King  James  in  a  sufficient  degree  to  mar 
its  justly  admired  Saxon  strength  and  beauty.  It  is  quite 
true  that  a  first  requirement  in  a  version  is  exactness ;  but 
grammatical  precision  is  not  always  adequate.  T]j^  Bible  is 
literature  as  well  as  revelation.  It  embraces  every  variety  of 
rhetorical  structure.  It  is  the  great  and  almost  unapproacha- 
ble merit  of  the  Authorized  Version  that  it  renders  into  cor- 
responding English,  and  preserves  in  this  dress,  the  diversified 
literature  of  the  Bible.  Many  other  translations  exceed  it  in 
critical  and  grammatical  exactness :  all  are  inferior  to  it  in 
literary  power. 


16  REVELATION. 

been  held  on  the  subject.  Authentic  informa- 
tion does  not  guide  us  far  back  of  the  advent  of 
Christianity.  At  that  date  we  may  say,  gener- 
ally, there  were  two  schools  of  Biblical  interpre- 
ters among  the  Jews,  —  the  literalists  and  the 
allegorists.  We  have  examples  of  both  in  the 
use  made  of  the  Old  Testament  by  writers  in 
the  New.  It  may  be  said  that  the  sacred  writings 
were  held  in  high  reverence  by  both  schools ; 
that  they  were  appealed  to  as  authority ;  that 
they  were  esteemed  as  oracles  containing  the 
commands  of  God  ;  and  that  it  was  believed  holy 
men  had  spoken  in  them  as  they  were  moved  by 
the  Holy  Spirit.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  appar- 
ent to  the  unbiassed  reader  that  no  such  view  of 
the  infallibility  of  the  record,  or  of  the  verbal 
importance  of  its  language,  as  was  subsequently 
maintained  in  certain  quarters,  was  then  held 
by  any  one. 

2.  The  earliest  teachers  of  Christianity  con- 
tinued the  methods  of  interpretation  that  had 
been  current  among  the  Jews,  with  modifications 
and  departures,  according  to  the  demands  of  per- 
sonal genius  or  the  access  of  the  Spirit.  Among 
the  Apostolical  Fathers,  Ignatius  and  Barnabas 
incline  to  the  allegorical  method  ;  while  Clement 


REVELATION.  17 

(of  Rome)  and  Polycarp  are,  in  their  practical 
spirit  and  their  pastoral  simplicity,  more  in  ac- 
cord with  the  style  of  the  New  Testament  epis- 
tles. The  latter  remark  applies  equally  to  the 
lately  discovered  document,  "  The  Teaching  of 
the  Twelve  Apostles,"  which  there  is  some  rea- 
son for  thinking  belongs  to  the  same  period.  A 
similar  line  of  difference  in  method  marks  off 
certain  of  the  Church  Fathers,  as  Tertullian  and 
Clement  (of  Alexandria),  from  others,  as  the 
great  Origen  and  Gregory  Nazianzen,  who  rev- 
elled in  allegory.  It  has  been  observed  by  the 
historians  of  Church  opinions  that  all  of  the  more 
eminent  of  the  Fathers  may  be  quoted  on  both 
sides  of  what  has  been  described  as  "  high  doc- 
trine" concerning  the  inspiration  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. The  fact  in  regard  to  the  view  held  by 
the  Fathers  generally,  including  Augustine  and 
Chrysostom,  has  been  fairly  summed  up  by  Tho- 
luck  in  the  remark :  "  Although  they  had  a 
general  impression  of  the  divinely  inspired  char- 
acter of  Scripture,  the  opinion  that  its  language 
was  human  and  imperfect  was  held  to  be  un- 
mistakable." 1 

1  The  Doctrine  of  Inspiration  (Translation),  in  Kitto's  Jour- 
nal of  Sacred  Literature. 

2 


18  REVELATION. 

3.  The  period  from  Augustine  to  the  Protes- 
tant Reformation  is  not  marked  by  any  change 
of  view  among  Biblical  scholars  concerning  Holy 
Scripture.  Definite  opinions,  based  on  specula- 
tion or  on  careful  criticism,  are  not  to  be  met 
with.  The  traditional  view  seems  to  have  been 
held  by  such  scholastics  as  Aquinas  and  Abelard, 
by  Bellarmine,  by  Erasmus,  and  by  other  writers 
of  this  Middle  Period,  who,  while  of  equal  author- 
ity in  their  own  day,  are  less  known  to  ours. 
But  with  the  Beformation  arose  a  definite  new 
theory,  —  the  "high  doctrine"  already  referred 
to.  This  theory,  gradually  developed,  and  finally 
taken  up  as  a  complete  defence  of  Protestantism 
against  the  dogma  of  Church  authority,  affirmed, 
as  expounded  by  Professor  Voetius  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Utrecht,  that  "  not  a  word  is  contained 
in  the  Holy  Scriptures  which  was  not  in  the 
strictest  sense  inspired,  the  very  interpunctuation 
not  excepted :  even  what  the  writers  previously 
knew  was  given  them  afresh  by  inspiration." 
Professor  Gaussen,  of  Geneva,  at  a  later  date 
published  an  elaborate  defence  ^  of  the  extreme 
doctrine,  holding  that  the  Divine  Spirit  exercised 

1  Theopneustia,  translated  by  Dr.  E.  N.  Kirk.  New  York: 
1850. 


REVELATION.  19 

such  power  over  the  authors  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures as  "  to  guide  them  even  in  the  employment 
of  the  words  they  were  to  use,  and  to  preserve 
them  from  all  error,  as  well  as  from  every  omis- 
sion." In  England,  in  America,  and  particularly 
in  Scotland,  this  was  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years  the  orthodox  theory  of  the  way  in  which 
the  Scriptures  were  produced.  In  some  instances 
theologians  recurred  to  the  earlier  and  more 
moderate  doctrine ;  but  the  prevalent  teaching 
on  the  subject,  over  nearly  the  whole  extent  of 
Protestant  Christendom,  from  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  till  after  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  was  that  of  the  "  Consensus  Helvetici," 
which  sought  to  substitute  an  infallible  Bible  for 
an  infallible  Church. 

4.  The  remaining  theories  may  be  included 
under  two  classes,  —  the  Rationalistic  and  the 
Reasonable.  The  Rationalistic  discerns  nothing 
supernatural  nor  authoritative  in  the  Scriptures 
or  in  the  way  in  which  they  were  produced.  The 
Bible  is  a  collection  of  religious  books,  peculiar 
among  books  in  their  topic  and  interesting  as 
literature ;  but  they  are,  in  whole  and  in  every 
part,  of  strictly  human  origin.  The  alleged  su- 
pernatural and  miraculous  phenomena  in  them 


20  REVELATION. 

are  to  be  regarded  as  instances  of  the  credulity 
or  of  the  myth-making  faculty  of  mankind.  The 
Bible  cannot  be  considered  a  revelation  in  any 
sense  in  which  Plato,  Goethe,  Shakspeare,  are 
not  also  a  revelation. 

What  we  take  the  liberty  of  terming  the 
Reasonable  view,  maintains  that  the  Bible  is 
the  Word  of  God,  as  no  other  book  can  claim 
to  be ;  that  it  is  the  record  of  a  particular  and 
progressive  disclosure  of  God,  culminating  in 
the  person  and  mission  of  Jesus  Christ;  that 
by  no  fair  construction  either  of  its  history  or 
its  contents  can  the  Biblical  record  be  made 
to  assume  the  character  of  a  legendary  accretion, 
in  which  certain  very  commonplace  facts  of 
human  history  have  been  gradually  wrought 
over  and  raised  into  supernatural  occurrences; 
but  that  the  opposite  is  the  true  order  of  facts 
and  events, —  namely,  that  certain  extraordinary 
disclosures  of  Divine  truth  and  power  and 
providence  have  taken  an  obviously  human 
setting ;  and  that  a  principal  value  of  the  Reve- 
lation made  through  the  Bible  consists  in  the 
effect  it  has  to  authenticate  and  give  meaning 
to  the  revelations  made  by  other  means. 

This  view  does  not  encumber  itself  with  the 


KEVELATION.  21 

joosf-Reformatiori  dogma  of  plenary  inspiration, 
nor  with  the  defence  and  reconciliation  of  pal- 
pable errors  in  chronology,  history,  and  science. 
It  leaves  room  for  the  free  play  of  reverent 
criticism ;  and  while  it  is  not  quite  credulous 
enough  to  accept  all  the  surmises  and  vigorous, 
not  to  say  violent,  redactions  of  Wellhausen, 
Kuenen,  and  their  school,  still  less  to  entertain 
anything  more  than  mild  compassion  for  the 
romancing  of  some  of  their  imitators,  it  per- 
mits a  lively  interest  in  all  genuine  research, 
confident  that  when  the  whole  truth  is  known 
the  Bible  will  stand  stronger  in  the  faith  and 
affection  of  the  world.^ 

V.  —  Is  A  Special  Revelation  Necessary? 
Is  IT  Probable? 

It  was  said  in  the  last  section  that  a 
principal  value  of  the  revelation  made  through 

1  The  most  thorough,  scholarly,  and  enlightened  presenta- 
tion of  what  we  have  styled  "  The  Reasonable  View  "  to 
be  met  with  in  English  is  Dr.  Geo.  T.  Ladd's  "  Doctrine 
of  Sacred  Scripture  :  A  Critical,  Historical,  and  Dogmatic 
Inquiry  into  the  Origin  and  Nature  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,"  2  vols.,  1886.  Dr.  Ladd  has  since  given  in  a 
briefer  and  more  popular  form  the  principal  results  of  the 
more  elaborate  treatise  in  a  single  volume,  entitled  "  What 
is  the  Bible?" 


22  REVELATION. 

the  Bible  is  the  effect  it  has  to  authenticate 
the  revelations  made  through  other  channels. 
It  is  worth  while  to  look  into  this  proposition 
more  critically  and  see  what  warrant  it  has; 
for  this  is  a  pivotal  point  in  our  study.  It  is 
a  debatable  question  whether,  if  God  had  not 
spoken  by  the  mouth  of  prophets  and  apos- 
tles, that  is,  by  some  method  of  special  dis- 
closure, His  creation  and  providence  would 
have  made  Him  known  to  man.  Let  us  admit, 
however,  that  the  human  mind  could  and 
would  come  to  a  more  or  less  firm  conviction 
of  the  reality  of  Divine  Being,  without  par- 
ticular aid,  and  by  processes  similar  to  those 
employed  in  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  Nature. 
Let  us  go  farther,  and  say,  that  by  induction, 
analogy,  and  intuition  men  might  reach  all  the 
conclusions  affirmed  by  Christianity,  —  such  as 
the  existence  of  God,  the  law  of  righteousness, 
the  duty  of  love,  the  spiritual  and  immortal  na- 
ture of  man,  —  still  it  will  appear  on  examina- 
tion that  the  disclosure  known  as  revelation  is 
by  no  means  rendered  unnecessary. 

1.  In  the  absence  of  a  revelation  it  cannot 
be  supposed  that  it  would  be  more  easy  than 
now  to  awaken  interest  in  religious  truth.      If 


REVELATION.  23 

we  had  no  "  Thus  saith  the -Lord"  we  should 
still  have  the  ignorant,  the  indifferent,  the  un- 
religious  and  the  irreligious  to  deal  with. 
Those  of  us  persuaded  of  the  truths  of  religion 
would  then  as  now  feel  their  solemnity  and 
importance,  and  would  be  trying  to  make  oth- 
ers feel  them.  What  would  be  our  method  ? 
We  should  be  obliged  to  conduct  an  argument 
of  the  same  general  nature  as  that  now  em- 
ployed in  treatises  on  Natural  Theology.  We 
should  appeal  to  reason  and  depend  on  infer- 
ence. We  should  attempt  to  make  out  by 
these  means  the  truths  of  the  being  of  God, 
of  the  immortality  of  man,  of  accountability, 
of  forgiveness,  of  salvation.  Let  us  suppose 
that  we  were  entirely  successful  in  our  argu- 
ment; that  our  reasoning  were  flawless  and 
our  conclusions  valid:  would  they  be  likely  to 
produce  conviction  ?  Would  they  awaken  and 
maintain  interest  in  the  great  themes  dis- 
cussed ?     We  suspect  not. 

2.  For  our  most  reasonable  as  well  as  our 
most  sceptical  hearers  would  be  wholly  justi- 
fied in  responding  to  our  elaborate  argument, 
—  as  we  cannot  doubt  they  would  respond : 
'*  Your    reasoning   is    plausible,  but    far    from 


24  REVELATION. 

coiivincing.  You  affirm  that  there  is  a  God. 
You  say  He  is  intimately  related  to  men 
and  deeply  interested  in  their  welfare ;  that 
He  has  been  doing  good  to  them  and  caring 
for  them  from  the  beginning;  and  that  when 
they  pass  out  of  this  world  He  receives  them 
into  His  more  immediate  presence.  How  is 
all  this  to  be  reconciled  with  the  fact  that  not 
an  intelligible  word  or  sign  has  ever  come 
from  Him  or  from  His  realm  ?  He  is,  by  your 
hypothesis,  a  person,  free,  mighty,  loving. 
What  has  hindered  Him  from  making  himself 
known,  in  some  direct  and  unmistakable  man- 
ner, in  the  long  period  since  man  began  to 
exist  on  this  planet  ?  Is  it  credible  that  there 
is  such  a  Being  as  you  describe  and  ask 
others  to  believe  in,  and  yet  no  race  nor  gen- 
eration of  men  ever  heard  from  Him  ?  Do 
you  not  see  that  one  line  of  communication 
from  Him  would  be  worth  more  than  a  whole 
library  of  inferential  reasonings  ? " 

3.  That  such  would  be  the  attitude  of  those 
we  should  seek  to  persuade,  in  the  absence  of 
any  special  revelation,  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt.  Those  who  now  are  swift  to  assure  us 
that   a   special    revelation    is    an    impertinence 


REVELATION.  25 

would  be  the  first  to  taunt  us  with  the  fatal  fact 
that  no  such  revelation  had  been  made.  That 
is  to  say,  if  we  had  no  revelation,  the  argument 
for  the  truths  of  religion  remaining  just  the 
same,  we  should  desire  a  revelation  to  render  our 
argument  conclusive.  The  circumstance  that  no 
means  of  verifying  our  reasoning  existed  could 
not  fail  to  leave  our  religious  science  in  a  con- 
dition of  hopeless  embarrassment. 

4.  It  is  impossible,  we  think,  to  put  the  need 
of  a  special  revelation  in  a  stronger  light.  The 
case  is  analogous  to  that  of  the  astronomers 
before  the  invention  of  the  telescope.  An  as- 
tronomer might  demonstrate  to  his  own  satis- 
faction, and  to  that  of  most  other  astronomers, 
the  existence  of  a  planet,  or  other  celestial  body, 
in  a  given  quarter  of  the  heavens ;  but  none  of 
them  could  see  it.  No  instrument  known  to 
science  could  penetrate  so  far  into  space.  Now 
they  might  all  agree  in  saying  that  the  demon- 
stration was  so  perfect  as  to  make  sight  super- 
fluous. They  might  exhibit  impatience  with 
those  who  refused  to  put  perfect  faith  in  their 
calculations,  and  loudly  insist  that  disbelief  in 
such  a  case  is  mere  contumacy.  But  can  there 
be  a  doubt  that  every  man  of  them  would  be 


26  REVELATION. 

glad  to  find  a  ^vay  of  looking  to  the  spot  and 
verifying  his  prediction  ?  What  would  be  thought 
of  the  sanity  of  the  astronomer  who,  in  these 
circumstances,  decried  the  utility  of  telescopes, 
and  professed  himself  pleased  that  there  was 
none  powerful  enough  to  draw  to  earth  the  dis- 
tant stranger's  beam  ?  Is  it  not  too  apparent 
to  require  a  word  of  testimony,  that  all  astrono- 
mers, and  all  other  persons  having  any  acquaint- 
ance with  such  subjects,  would  experience  a 
thrill  of  joy  on  the  announcement  that  Rosse  or 
Clarke  had  perfected  an  instrument  which  ena- 
bled the  human  eye  to  look  upon  the  very  face 
of  the  planet  known  hitherto  only  by  computa- 
tion ?  All  a  priori  objections  to  a  revelation 
fall  to  the  ground  before  the  undeniable  truth 
that  if  we  had  no  such  revelation,  all  persons 
would  wish  that  we  had.  The  believer  would  de- 
sire it,  that  he  might  be  certified  of  the  validity 
of  the  grounds  of  his  faith  :  the  doubter,  that  he 
might  not  be  required  to  take  so  much  on  trust. 
6.  If  a  revelation  be  needful,  a  revelation  is 
probable ;  for,  apart  from  the  broad  general 
principle  that  the  scheme  of  creation  in  all  its 
parts  is  such  as  permits  us  to  expect  whatever 
has  been  found  to  be  necessary  to  mankind,  we 


REVELATION.  27 

can  scarcely  err  in  thinking  that  it  would  not  be 
like  God  to  withhold  himself  from  His  children. 
If  God  is,  He  must  disclose  himself.  If  He  does 
not  reveal  himself,  we  lack  the  primary  ground 
of  belief  that  He  is.  It  is  out  of  the  power  of 
any  force  or  authority  that  can  be  conceived 
of  —  creed  or  canon  or  church  —  to  maintain 
belief  in  a  God  that  gives  no  sign.  And  if  we 
allow  that  He  reveals  himself  in  His  works,  —  in 
nature,  man,  history,  as  we  are  forward  to  do, — 
yet  if  it  can  be  successfully  maintained  that  He 
never  reveals  himself  in  any  other  way,  a  deep 
shadow  of  doubt  at  once  falls  on  the  verity  of 
the  opinion  that  God  is  disclosed  in  what  are 
called  His  works.  The  truth  is,  both  phases  of 
revelation  stand  or  fall  together.  If  God  is  not 
revealed  in  nature,  it  is  futile  to  argue  that  He 
is  revealed  through  the  persons  and  processes  of 
which  we  have  the  record  in  our  Bible.  Con- 
versely, if  there  has  been  no  such  revelation  of 
God  as  the  Bible  gives  account  of,  the  wit  of 
man  will  forever  fail  to  establish  even  a  fair 
presumption  that  God  is  disclosing  himself  in 
nature.  It  comes  to  this,  then,  that  the  atheist 
is  the  only  one  who  can  consistently  deny  the 
probability  of  historic  revelation. 


28  REVELATION. 

6.  The  above  reasoning  does  not  authorize 
the  conclusion  that  we  have  in  our  Bible  either 
the  only  special  revelation  God  has  made,  or  an 
instance  of  such  revelation.  That  is  a  different 
question.  In  a  previous  section  ^  reasons  were 
offered  for  the  opinion  that  the  Bible  is  the 
record  of  a  special  revelation.  It  is  in  place  to 
remark  here,  that  when  we  see  how  probable 
and  necessary  some  revelation  from  God  is,  we 
are  immediately  face  to  face  with  the  question, 
Is  Christianity  that  revelation,  or  do  we  seek 
another  ?  If  we  were  all  able  to  lay  aside  preju- 
dice and  prepossession,  it  is  probable  we  should 
view  this,  as  well  as  many  other  subjects,  differ- 
ently from  what  we  now  do.  But  is  there  any 
good  ground  for  thinking  that  we  should  see 
reasons  for  selecting  some  other  system,  or, 
finally,  for  discarding  the  Christian  as  wanting 
the  essential  marks  of  a  revelation  ? 

VI.  —  Difficulties. 

The  common  difficulty  of  all  religions  is  in  the 

fact  that  they  have  their  ground  in  the  assumed 

reality  of  things  unseen.     Sense  and  spirit  are 

the  two  poles  of  thought  and  the  two  realms 

1  See  pp.  11, 12. 


REVELATION.  29 

of  being.  In  the  body  we  are  compelled  to 
deal  primarily  and  continually  with  the  former. 
Things  and  realms  apprehensible  by  means  of 
the  senses  are  said  to  be  matters  of  knowledge. 
The  thoughtful  and  educated  recognize,  also,  the 
reality  of  many  things  for  a  knowledge  of  which 
we  are  not  dependent  on  the  senses,  —  like  the 
properties  of  numbers,  the  relation  of  ideas,  the 
perception  of  truth.  But  neither  the  common 
nor  the  educated  mind  readily  takes  hold  of 
the  fact  that  the  power  to  discern  moral  truth 
and  to  make  moral  discriminations  implies  a 
spiritual  man,  as  much  as  the  power  to  distin- 
guish odor  or  color  or  weight  implies  a  physical 
man.  "  Fools  and  slow  of  heart,"  is  the  not 
inappropriate  characterization  of  multitudes  of 
mankind.  To  this  dulness  of  moral  apprehen- 
sion more  than  to  anything  else  is  to  be  attrib- 
uted that  mood  of  mind  which  staggers  at  the 
promises  of  God.  Inability  to  discern  spiritual 
truth,  whether  due  to  an  unawakened  moral 
nature  or  to  wilful  disregard  of  the  claims  of 
that  nature,  is  the  explanation  of  most  of  the 
difficulties  with  which  unbelief  invests  religion. 
It  is  usual  to  speak  of  "  the  difficulties  of  reli- 
gion : "  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  speak  of 


80  REVELATION. 

the  difficulties  of  irreligion ;  for  it  is  the  irre- 
ligious temper  that  creates  the  difficulties.  And 
this  temper  pervades  more  or  less  all  persons. 
It  is  an  inevitable  concomitant  of  our  earthly 
environment. 

1.  But  a  religion  of  which  revelation  is  the 
prominent  feature  presents  peculiar  obstacles 
to  human  infirmity.  Besides  dealing  with  the 
spiritual  and  unseen,  and  thus  drawing  from  the 
start  on  faith,  it  assumes  the  supernatural  and 
asserts  the  miraculous.  To  the  superstitious, 
whose  credulity  is  more  active  than  their  judg- 
ment, these  elements  constitute  an  attraction ; 
but  to  the  prosaic  part  of  mankind,  to  the 
critical  and  contentious,  to  such  as  have  had 
their  wits  sharpened  without  a  corresponding 
development  of  reverence,  to  students  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  natural  world  in  which  physi- 
cal effects  are  exactly  measured  by  physical 
causes,  to  students  of  mythology,  folk-lore,  and 
fable,  and,  in  fine,  to  many  careful  and  sincere 
truth-seekers,  who  are  desirous  of  knowing  just 
what  the  fact  is,  and  who  are  cautious  because 
they  would  not  be  deceived,  —  the  supernatural 
and  miracle  are  impediments  in  the  way  of  a 
hearty  acceptance  of  the  Christian  religion. 


REVELATION.  81 

2.  In  our  day  we  have  conditions  in  the  relig- 
ious world  which  did  not  belong  to  any  former 
era.  There  are  large  numbers  of  people  —  how 
large  no  one  can  tell  —  in  actual  or  nominal 
relation  with  the  churches,  comprising  in  some 
instances  a  considerable  proportion  of  a  whole 
denomination,  who  are  in  real  difficulty — we  had 
almost  said  distress  —  on  account  of  the  fact  that 
Christianity  is  encumbered,  as  they  think,  with 
miracle.  They  are  not  critics  of  Christianity, 
nor  uninterested  outsiders :  Christianity  is  their 
religion.  They  are  ardently  attached  to  it,  and 
disposed  to  share  its  fortunes.  They  appreciate 
its  vast  services  to  mankind  and  its  great  woi^th. 
They  desire  to  see  it  "  still  full  high  advanced," 
and  would  esteem  its  destruction  or  decline  an 
unspeakable  calamity.  But  its  supernaturalism 
and  its  miracles  appear  to  them  not  only  an  un- 
essential part  of  the  system,  but  a  hindrance  and 
misfortune.  They  do  not  see  how  it  could  be 
done,  but  they  do  not  conceal  their  conviction 
that  if  the  entire  texture  of  supernaturalism 
were  eliminated  from  Christianity  it  would  be 
an  immense  gain. 

3.  Such  an  extraordinary  state  of  facts  in 
the  community  of  Christians  demands  attention. 


32  REVELATION. 

It  may  be  dealt  with  in  two  ways  :  It  may  be 
treated  with  indignation  and  scorn,  as  iniqui- 
tous and  inexcusable  disloyalty  to  the  cause, 
or  it  may  be  looked  on  as  a  phenomenon  of 
the  age,  due  to  peculiar  causes  which  have  not 
always  been  at  work.  So  viewed,  it  may  be 
studied  in  a  sympathetic  spirit,  its  real  signifi- 
cance and  its  true  motive  discerned ;  allowance 
may  be  made  for  it ;  alarm  on  one  side  and 
irritation  on  the  other  allayed  ;  and  efforts  made 
to  remove  the  difficulty,  which  is  recognized  as 
real,  not  by  scolding,  but  by  patient  and  thorough 
examination.  The  latter,  we  scarcely  need  add, 
is  in  our  judgment  the  proper  course.  In  the 
restricted  space  at  our  command  we  can  do  little 
more  in  this  place  than  give  a  sample  of  the 
method  we  approve. 

(1)  Let  it  be  observed,  in  the  first  place,  that 
supernatural  phenomena,  whether  fact  or  fiction, 
do  not  comprise  the  subject-matter  of  revelation. 
They  are  incidental  only.  The  staple  of  revela- 
tion is  made  up  of  truths,  ideas,  ordinances, 
facts  disclosed ;  or,  as  in  the  case  of  Christianity, 
of  a  person  who  embodies  these.  Portents  and 
miracles  are  incidental  only.  They  derive  their 
importance  from  two  circumstances :   (a)  That 


REVELATION.  33 

they  challenge  belief ;  (5)  That  they  are  univer- 
sally regarded  as  inseparable  from  a  revelation. 

(2)  Are  they  inseparable  ?  Can  there  be  no 
disclosure  of  God  to  man  —  no  direct,  per- 
sonal, palpable  disclosure,  without  supernatural 
accompaniments  ?  This  is  the  kernel  of  the 
matter.  Let  us  analyze  the  event  to  which 
this  name  "  revelation "  is  given.  It  is  the 
communication  from  God,  a  spiritual  person, 
of  facts,  truths,  ideas,  precepts,  —  an  order  of 
life,  —  to  men,  spiritual  persons.  In  the  one 
case,  however,  the  spiritual  personality  is  un- 
veiled and  without  shadow :  in  the  other  it  is 
veiled  in  flesh.  God  is  nqt  hidden :  it  is  we 
that  are  masked  in  flesh.  And  because  this 
is  so,  our  only  means  of  apprehension  is 
through  this  veil,  —  through  our  physical  or- 
gans. We  cannot  know  God,  therefore,  unless 
He  "becomes  like  one  of  us,"  appearing 
in  physical  form ;  or  unless  we  temporarily 
emerge  from  our  bodily  vesture.  If  God 
should  manifest  himself  in  the  flesh  we  could 
know  Him  as  we  know  each  other.  If  we 
should  transcend  in  some  way  our  physical 
environment,  it  is  conceivable  that  we  might 
know  God   as  spirit   knows   spirit.     But  either 

3 


34  REVELATION 

of  these  things,  accomplislied  m  this  world 
and  among  men,  would  constitute  a  supernat- 
ural occurrence.  The  supernaturalism  inheres 
in  the  nature  of  the  case. 

(3)  The  other  possible  modes  of  making  a 
revelation,  as  we  conceive  the  subject,  are, 
(a)  that  God  might  select  a  human  medium 
of  communication,  whom  He  should  suitably 
endow  or  inspire.  This  w^ould  plainly  be  an 
act  transcending  human  experience  and  hu- 
man power,  and  so  answering  to  the  idea  of 
the  supernatural.  (5)  He  might  choose  a  celes- 
tial messenger,  and  send  him  to  men.  But  the 
appearance  of  such  a  messenger  among  men 
would  be,  obviously,  a  supernatural  event.  (<?) 
He  might  inspire  directly,  either  each  indi- 
vidual of  the  race,  or  such  individuals  as 
might  be  favorably  situated  for  spreading  the 
knowledge  with  which  thej^  should  be  thus 
possessed. 

Some  persons,  who  evidently  have  not 
thought  profoundly  on  the  subject,  suppose 
that  in  the  last  case  we  should  have  reve- 
lation without  supernatural  accompaniment. 
God  puts  His  impulse,  or  sentiments,  or 
ideas    into    men's    minds,    it    is    said,  as    He 


REVELATION.  35 

puts  His  breath  into  their  nostrils.  They 
give  forth  what  is  inspired  in  them,  uncon- 
scious that  it  is  more  than  their  ordinary 
thinking,  or,  at  least,  unaware  that  it  is  from 
any  higher  source.  But  it  is  recognized  by 
mankind,  is  carefully  treasured,  and  in  due 
time  finds  its  place  with  the  sacred  scriptures 
of  the  world. 

(4)  This  theory  of  the  facts  is  hardly  sat- 
isfactory. In  the  first  place,  it  is  to  be  said, 
that  the  inspiration  of  the  individual  is  either 
real  or  fictitious.  If  it  is  fictitious,  nothing 
is  communicated.  If  it  is  real,  then  the  im- 
pulses, ideas,  sentiments,,  are  actually  imparted 
to  the  human  spirit  by  the  Divine  Spirit. 
Again,  either  these  impulses,  sentiments,  ideas, 
are  soynetliing  more  than  the  regular  stock  of 
human  thought,  or  there  is  nothing  given 
which  it  is  not  a  misuse  of  language  to 
designate  as  "  revelation  ; "  nothing,  therefore, 
for  mankind  to  recognize.  For  recognition  im- 
plies certain  marks  by  which  a  thing  may  be 
distinguished  from  other  things.  But  unless 
there  is  something  more  than  the  normal  prod- 
ucts of  thought,  how  is  mankind  to  detect 
and  separate  the  products  of  inspiration  ? 


36  REVELATION. 

The  moment  we  put  our  minds  closely  to 
the  facts,  we  see  that  the  alternative  is  either 
to  admit  an  event  for  which  there  is  no 
strictly  natural  explanation,  and  which  is, 
therefore,  correctly  described  as  supernatural, 
or  discard  the  notion  of  a  revelation  alto- 
gether. The  essence  of  the  matter  is,  that 
knowledge  and  impulses  are  conveyed  to  men 
from  God;  and  that  they  are  of  such  a  nature 
as  to  stamp  them,  either  at  the  time  or  finally, 
as  of  superhuman  origin.  Whether  the  mind 
to  whom  they  are  imparted  is  conscious  of 
their  source  or  not,  cannot  alter  the  fact 
that  they  are  of  a  special  character,  that  they 
are  from  above,  in  a  sense  different  from  that 
in  which  mathematical  or  philosophical  knowl- 
edge is  from  above,  and  that  the  Divine  Mind 
was  moved  to  communicate  them. 

VII.  —  Miracle. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  supernatural  in 
general  leads  up  to  a  particular  inquiry  con- 
cerning miracle.  The  supernatural  is  the 
genus :  miracle  is  the  species.  The  idea  of 
the  supernatural  is,  that  God  discloses  him- 
self in   a   way   of   freedom   analogous   to   that 


REVELATION.  37 

in  which  human  personality  is  shown.  Law 
is  always  impersonal.  There  is  not  a  known 
instance  of  personality  expressed  by  law.  If 
the  activities  of  human  beings  were  the  mani- 
festations of  law,  and  law  only,  men  would 
not  be  distinguishable  from  other  objects  — 
plants,  minerals,  gases  —  in  which  the  energies 
of  nature  appear.  It  is  the  apprehension  that 
their  activities  are,  for  the  most  part,  self- 
determined,  which  gives  rise  to  the  notion  of 
their  personality.  Freedom,  real  freedom,  is 
of  the  essence  of  our  own  nature,  and  is  the 
mark  by  which  we  are  distinguished  from  all 
below  us. 

1.  Attention  to  the  problem  will  press  on 
the  mind  the  conviction  that  the  Divine  Per- 
sonality is  disclosed  in  a  way  exactly  similar 
to  that  in  which  the  human  personality  an- 
nounces itself.  If  we  could  hold  fast  consist- 
ently to  the  idea  that  God  manifests  himself 
only  through  unvarying  law,  the  result  would 
be  that  we  should  cease  to  think  of  God  as  a 
person.  And  if  we  ceased  to  think  of  Him 
as  a  person,  we  should  presently  lose  Him  al- 
together; for  as  an  impersonal  man  is  no 
man  at  all,  so  an  impersonal  God  is  no  God 


38  REVELATION. 

at  all.  It  follows,  that  if  we  are  to  retain 
the  idea  of  God,  not  to  say  belief  in  Him, 
we  must  conceive  of  Him  as  a  person ;  and  if 
we  conceive  of  Him  as  a  person,  we  must 
attribute  to  Him  a  freedom  of  action  incom- 
patible with  the  notion  that  He  never  discloses 
himself  except  through  unvarying  law. 

2.  It  thus  appears  that  the  very  idea  of  God 
carries  with  it  the  idea  of  the  supernatural. 
He  who  denies  the  supernatural  logically  de- 
nies God;  for  the  supernatural  is,  in  idea,  the 
conception  of  Divine  action  determined  by  a 
free  spirit,  after  the  analogy  of  human  action, 
instead  of  action  constrained  by  necessity. 
All  the  reasons  ever  offered  for  rejecting  su- 
pernaturalism  are  found  on  analysis  to  be 
equally  reasons  for  rejecting  theism.  To  say 
that  there  is  a  God,  personal  and  free,  and  to 
follow  that  declaration  by  saying  that  He  must 
not  be  supposed  ever  to  act  in  His  universe  in 
any  way  different  from  that  in  which  atoms  or 
energies  act,  is  to  approach  dangerously  near 
self-contradiction. 

3.  It  may  be  thought  that  such  self-con- 
tradiction is  avoided  by  the  hypothesis  that 
action  on  the  part  of  a  perfect  being,  who  is 


REVELATION.  39 

also  free,  takes  the  form  of  unvarying  law. 
That  is  His  mode.  His  freedom  is  located  at 
the  point  of  His  choice  of  a  regulated  and 
unchanging  order.  It  is  not  the  order  which 
constrains  Him,  but  His  perfection  that  re- 
quires the  order.  In  the  eternal  order  of  the 
creation,  it  is  said,  we  have  the  characteristic 
mark  of  God ;  in  all  things  unstable  and 
capricious  we  recognize  imperfect  man. 

That  unchanging  order  is  a  mode  of  the 
Divine  manifestation  is  unquestionable ;  but 
that  it  is  the  mode  is  incapable  of  proof,  and 
is  intrinsically  improbable.  So  far  as  we 
know,  the  more  perfect  a  being  is  the  more 
spontaneous  and  voluntary  do  his  activities 
become ;  the  less  is  he  under  law.  A  dis- 
tinction is  to  be  observed  between  the  use 
of  a  regulated  order  and  subserviency  to  it. 
The  use  of  such  an  order  evinces  perfection: 
at  the  same  time,  and  in  the  same  degree, 
perfection  disdains  the  bondage  of  an  order 
which  is  its  instrument  and  not  its  autocrat. 
If  we  grant — what  no  one  can  know  to  be 
the  fact — that  God  chose  law  as  the  mode 
of  His  manifestation,  and  the  sole  mode,  the 
supernaturalism    remains.     He    who    supposes 


40  EEVELATION. 

that  God  at  the  beginning,  by  a  free  act, 
precisely  similar  to  that  by  which  Aristotle 
chose  his  method  of  communicating  instruc- 
tion to  his  royal  pupil,  made  law  His  mode 
of  manifestation,  must  conceive  that  God 
acted,  at  that  point,  in  just  the  way  whicli 
the  supernaturalist  contends  that  He  has  since 
acted.  It  is  simply  the  difference  between 
locating  the  phenomenon  at  the  beginning  or 
subsequently.  Unless  we  make  the  mode  of 
the  Divine  manifestation  a  necessary  mode, 
by  w^hich  He  is  bound,  so  that  He  cannot 
manifest  himself  otherwise,  it  is  plain  that 
there  was  a  period  when  He  was  not  confined 
to  law  —  certainly  not  to  the  laws  observed 
by  us.  It  comes,  then,  to  the  same  complex- 
ion at  last.  We  are  supernaturalists,  in  some 
fashion,  if  we  arc  theists.  We  may  choose 
to  be  eccentric  about  it,  or  we  may  fall  into 
line  with  the  view  of  the  great  thinkers  in 
philosophy  and  in  religion ;  but  we  cannot 
separate  things  which  the  laws  of  thought 
make  parts  of  one  whole.^ 

1  Here  it  is,  in  this  intellectual  presupposition  of  any 
emerging  world,  this  prior  condition  of  the  natural,  that  we 
meet  a  persistent  "supernatural,"  in  the  idea  of  which  the 
very  essence  of  the  religious  problem  lies,  and  without  ref- 


REVELATION.  41 

4.  Now  a  miracle  is  an  instance  of  the 
supernatural.^  In  other  terms,  it  is  an  ex- 
pression, in  a  given  case,  of  that  free  per- 
sonal action  which  is  inseparable  from  our 
idea  of  a  personal  God.  But  God  may  be 
acting  in  that  manner,  for  aught  that  we 
know,  continually  and  in  every  part  of  His 
creation.  What  is  it  that  brings  any  instance 
of  such  action  by  Him  to  our  particular 
notice  ?  It  is  its  occurrence  in  the  realm 
with  which  we  are  in  contact  by  our  physical 
senses.  In  that  realm  we  are  accustomed  to 
expect  uniform  antecedents  to  occurrences. 
The  only  conceivable  exceptions  are  where 
a  being  possessed  of  volition  intervenes.  We 
explain  all  such  exceptions  at  once  by  refer- 
ence   to    the    action    of    that    personal    force 

erence  to  which  the  order  of  Nature  can  tell  us  of  nothing 
but  itself;  for  God  is  not  there.  Nature  therefore  can  never 
swallow  up  the  supernatural,  any  more  than  time  can  swal- 
low up  eternity;  they  subsist  and  are  intelligible  only  to- 
gether ;  and  nothing  can  be  more  mistaken  than  to  treat 
them  as  mutually  exclusive.  —  James  Martineau  :  A  Study 
of  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp.  7,  8. 

1  A  miracle  is  an  event  which  the  forces  of  Nature  — 
including  the  natural  powers  of  man  —  cannot  of  them- 
selves produce,  and  which  must  therefore  be  referred  to 
a  supernatural  agency.  —  Prof,  G.  P  Fisher  :  Christian  Evi- 
dences, p.  9.     Compare  "  What  is  the  Bible?  "  p.  156  et  seq. 


42  REVELATION. 

called  will.  But  so  far  as  human  beings  are 
concerned,  an  act  of  will,  while  in  its  incep- 
tion and  in  its  connection  with  the  physical 
organism  quite  as  inexplicable  as  any  miracle, 
can  only  be  manifest  to  others  than  the  actor 
through  the  body ;  and  the  activities  of  the 
body  are  open  to  inspection  by  the  senses. 
The  effects  produced  in  our  world  by  the 
intervention  of  the  human  will  are,  therefore, 
classed  as  natural  phenomena,^  of  which  sci- 
ence can  give  account.  But  effects  produced 
in  our  world  without  the  use  of  physical 
agents,  and  which  are  not  referable  to  any 
law  of  Nature,  are  attributed  to  the  Divine 
Will  and  are  classed  as  miracles.  A  miracle, 
then,  follows  the  analogy  of  events  produced 
by  the  intervention  of  the  human  will:  the  dif- 


1  Not,  however,  by  all.  Horace  Bushnell,  in  his  celebrated 
treatise,  entitled  "Nature  and  the  Supernatural,"  classes  all 
acts  springing  directly  from  will  as  supernatural.  The  late 
President  Mark  Hopkins,  adopting  the  theory  of  Bushnell, 
states  the  case  in  these  words :  "  If  that  which  is  in  God 
be  not  nature,  but  supernatural,  why  should  we  call  that 
in  us  by  which  we  are  in  the  image  of  God,  nature  1  Here 
I  suppose  we  find  the  true  line  between  nature  and  the 
supernatural.  All  spirit  and  spiritual  activity,  whether  it 
be  morally  good  or  evil,  is  supernatural.  All  free  causation 
is  supernatural.  —  Outline  Study  of  Man,  p.  258. 


REVELATION.  43 

ference  being  that  in  the  one  case  the  means 
used  by  the  will  are  apparent,  in  the  other  they 
are  not.  This  is  the  essence  of  the  phenome- 
non called  a  miracle.  It  is  the  sign  of  the  pres- 
ence of  God  in  the  realm  of  physical  causation, 
acting  in  the  freedom  of  His  personality  where 
He  ordinarily  acts  by  the  method  of  law.^ 

5.  It  is  the  opinion  —  perhaps  we  should 
say  conviction  —  of  many  persons  that  "mir- 
acles do  not  happen."  If,  after  a  candid  and 
p.atient  examination  of  the  alleged  event,  one 
is  persuaded  that  miracle  does  not  happen, 
there  is  no  more  to  be  said.  He  sees  the  fact 
and  the  reasons  as  they  appear  to  his  mind. 
A  review  of  the  subject  may  change  his  opin- 
ion; but  until  the  evidence  in  the  case  as- 
sumes a  different  aspect  to  his  mind  miracles 
certainly  do  not  exist  for  him.  It  is  our 
belief,  however,   that   the   number   of    persons 

1  Now  if  we  examine  the  conception  of  the  miracle 
which  seems  to  be  required  by  the  teaching  of  both  the 
Old  and  the  New  Testaments,  we  find  that  it  includes  three 
elements.  It  is  implied,  in  the  first  place,  that  a  miracle  is 
not  an  event  of  ordinary  experience ;  secondly,  that  it  is 
the  product  of  God's  immediate  presence  and  activity; 
thirdly,  that  it  is  a  sign,  or  proof,  or  reminder  to  men, 
which  has  a  moral  and  religious  significance.  —  Dr.  Geo. 
T.  Ladd.     •'  What  is  the  Bible  ?  "  pp.  161,  162. 


44  REVELATION. 

who  have  given  the  question  a  calm  and  can- 
did investigation,  and  as  a  result  have  aban- 
doned miracle,  is  not  large.  We  judge  that 
the  usual  course  with  those  who  are  found 
denying  miracle  is  to  take  up  a  position  of 
criticism  or  hostility  to  miracles  without  much 
direct  thought  on  the  subject,  but  as  the  re- 
sult of  personal  or  literary  associations,  or  on 
account  of  the  influence  of  the  "  atmosphere " 
in  which  their  opinions  are  forming.  It  is 
matter  of  observation  that  opinions  on  the 
subject  are  constantly  undergoing  change, 
both  from  belief  to  disbelief  and  from  unbe- 
lief to  faith.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  scep- 
ticism is  on  the  increase.  So  it  is  in  some 
circles;  but  belief  is  increasing  in  other  cir- 
cles. On  the  whole,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  human  soul  is  getting  nearer  to  the 
truth  in  the  premises.  To  those  who  think 
that  Squire  Wendover  found  the  truth  it  will 
not  be  questioned  that  the  tendency  is  to- 
ward discarding  miracle ;  to  us,  who  hold 
that  miracle  is  as  credible  as  belief  in  God 
or  in  immortality,  there  is  not  a  doubt  that 
faith  steadily  wins  the  field  of  thought. 

6.   This  is  not   a    place    where  the   subject 


REVELATION.  45 

can  be  drawn  out  to  anything  like  adequate 
treatment.  But  it  may  be  noticed  that  the 
consideration  which  usually  carries  the  day 
with  thoughtful  persons  is  the  discovery  that 
belief  in  a  personal  God  and  in  the  super- 
natural stand  or  fall  together.  This  was 
perceived  and  candidly  admitted  by  John 
Stuart  Mill,  who  chose  the  alternative  of 
raising  the  question,  whether  there  is  evi- 
dence of  the  existence  of  a  personal  Deity. 
Professor  Huxley  —  another  of  the  most  acute 
thinkers  and  consistent  reasoners  in  the  ranks 
of  the  agnostics  —  discerns  the  same  fact.  In 
a  letter  to  the  Spectator^  Feb.  10,  1866,  he 
defends  himself  from  the  charge  of  having 
avowed  atheism :  "  I  cannot  take  this  position 
with  honesty,  inasmuch  as  it  is,  and  always 
has  been,  a  favorite  tenet  of  mine  that 
atheism  is  as  absurd,  logically  speaking,  as 
polytheism."  In  the  same  letter  he  remarks, 
"  Denying  the  possibility  of  miracles  seems 
to  me  quite  as  unjustifiable  as  speculative 
atheism."  The  truth  clearly  discerned  by  this 
penetrating  mind  is,  that  one  who  believes 
in  a  God  cannot  consistently  deny  that  "mira- 
cles happen ; "  and  one  who  even  takes  the 
agnostic  position,  refusing  to  say  whether  there 


46  REVELATION. 

is  a  God  or  not,  is  estopped  from  "  denying 
the  possibility  of  miracles "  until  he  is  ready 
to  announce  flatly  that  there  is  no  God. 

The  overwhelming  majority  of  those  who 
think  on  the  problem  at  all  are  not  willing 
to  take  even  an  agnostic  position  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  existence  of  God.  They  cling  to 
theism ;  and  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  logic 
whether  they  shall  take  with  it  what  all  close 
and  clear  thinkers  are  not  Ions:  in  discernins; 
to  be  a  constituent  part, —  belief  in  the  super- 
natural with  the  corollary  of  miracle.  The 
same  fact  rises  to  view  from  another  point  of 
observation :  those  who  give  up  the  supernat- 
ural and  miracle,  and  adhere  to  the  position, 
are  apt  to  slip  by  easy  and  natural  stages 
into  distrust  of  the  actual  personality  of  God ; 
thence  into  doubt  of  the  existence  of  God, — 
agnosticism ;  and  at  that  half-way  house  take 
shelter,  until  driven  out  and  started,  either 
this  way  toward  theism,  or  that  way  toward 
atheism. 

7.  But  it  is  rejoined.  The  question  is  not, 
whether  God  might  work  a  miracle,  but 
whether  we  have  any  satisfactory  evidence 
that  He  has  or  does.  ''  Satisfactory "  to 
whom?    The    evidence     that     God     has    done 


REVELATION.  47 

what  every  theist  must  allow  He  can  do,  has 
seemed  "  satisfactory "  to  many  millions  of 
mankind,  including  the  greater  proportion  of 
the  most  acute  and  learned  of  our  race.  It 
is  the  habit  of  some  writers  in  our  day  to 
say  —  what  we  presume  they  have  come  to 
believe  —  that  the  belief  in  miracle  is  passing 
away ;  that  reasonable  and  well-informed  peo- 
ple have  given  up  miracle,  as  they  have  the 
idea  of  a  personal  Devil ;  and  that  the  notion 
lingers  only  in  benighted  circles,  or  among 
persons  who,  having  passed  the  meridian  of 
life,  do  not  readily  change  their  opinions. 
When  one  looks  into  the  facts  this  assump- 
tion appears  highly  ludicrous.  Not  to  go 
outside  of  Christendom,  the  fact  is  that  there 
is  not  a  sect  of  even  nominal  Christians  that 
takes  the  position  of  the  rejection  of  miracle. 
There  are  individuals  and  parties,  or  schools, 
in  several  sects  who  repudiate  the  supernat- 
ural. But  taken  all  together  they  do  not 
number  as  many  as  a  sect  like  the  Quakers 
or  the  Mennonites.  The  great  sects  of  Chris- 
tendom, together  with  almost  all  the  small 
ones,  stand  on  this  question  where  the  Church 
has  stood  from  the  beginning.      It  is  claimed 


48  REVELATION. 

that  the  scientists  and  the  influential  thinkers 
of  the  age,  most  of  whom  are  not  in  any  sect, 
have  taken  up  th^  position  on  this  subject  to 
which  all  Christians  must  presently  advance. 
It  may  be  so,  but  there  is  not  more  evidence 
of  it  than  there  was  of  the  same  result  at 
the  beginning  of  tliis  century;  while  the  evi- 
dence against  it  is  massive  and  obstinate. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  fact  that  the  question 
is  what  the  rejoinder  asserts.  So  far  as  we 
have  noted,  the  point  of  controversy  always  is, 
whether  God  can  work  a  miracle,  —  whether  it 
is  possible.  Those  who  concede  that  it  is  pos- 
sible will  be  remanded  to  the  discussion  of  its 
probability.  This  will  arise  over  some  alleged 
instance  or  series  of  instances.  When  the  dis- 
cussion takes  that  form  each  case  must  be 
examined  on  its  merits.  We  think  it  will  be 
agreed  on  all  hands  that  it  would  be  a  most 
extraordinary  outcome  of  the  examination  of 
the  thousands  of  cases  of  a  phenomenon  con- 
ceded to  be  possible,  to  find  not  one  that  is 
actual.  In  other  terms,  we  apprehend  that  the 
real  pith  of  the  objector's  contention  will  be 
discovered  to  be  gone  when  he  proceeds  on  the 
assumption   that    miracle   is   possible.      For   a 


REVELATION.  49 

miracle  can  only  be  possible  on  the  assumption 
of  the  reality  of  the  supernatural. 

8.  The  space  we  give  to  a  discussion  of  the 
supernatural  and  miracle  is  warranted,  not  alone 
by  the  intrinsic  interest  of  the  subject,  but  by 
its  inseparable  relation  to  revelation.  We  have 
seen  that  revelation  involves  the  supernatural. 
It  is  but  a  different  expression  of  the  same  fact 
to  say  that  the  specific  end  subserved  by  miracle 
is  to  attest  revelation.  The  account  given  of  it 
shows  that  it  is  a  sign  of  the  presence  of  a 
Personal  Power.  "  In  a  miracle  the  will  of  God 
acts  directly  and  produces  outward  effects  with 
no  intervening  agency.  This  our  wills  cannot 
do.  Hence  a  miracle  is  the  great  seal  of  God 
to  any  communication  from  himself."  ^ 

There  are  those  who  doubt  the  validity  of  this 
position.  They  say  that  a  revelation,  if  true, 
attests  itself;  that  the  miracle  is  the  part  of 
the  alleged  revelation  that  taxes  belief;  and 
that  so  far  from  supporting  the  revelation,  mira- 
cles tend  to  discredit  it.  It  has  been  remarked 
by  a  learned  and  discriminating  modern  critic :  ^ 
"If  miracles  were,  in  the  estimate  of  a  former 
age,  among  the  chief  supports  of  Christianity, 

1  President  Hopkins.  ^  Baden  Powell. 

4 


50  REVELATION. 

they  are  at  present  among  the  main  difficulties 
and  hindrances  to  its  acceptance." 

The  force  of  this  objection  would  be  very 
great  as  against  the  idea  that  miracles  are 
the  only  or  main  support  of  revelation.  This 
position  has  sometimes  been  taken  by  Christian 
apologists ;  but  it  is  obviously  indefensible.  The 
true  position,  as  we  apprehend,  is  that  the  chief 
vindication  of  the  reality  of  an  alleged  revelation 
must  be  found  in  the  manner  in  which  it  bears 
the  test  to  which  time  subjects  it.  If  it  did 
not  bear  this  internal  and  practical  test,  neither 
miracles  nor -any  other  external  supports  could 
maintain  its  credit.  But  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  miracles  are  thereby  proved  to  be  unessen- 
tial to  revelation.  For  the  fact  is,  that  without 
the  impression  made  in  favor  of  the  revelation 
by  "  signs  and  wonders  and  mighty  acts,"  in  the 
beginning,  it  would  not  have  been  put  to  the 
practical  test.  The  first  persuasion  produced  by 
Christianity  was  that  it  came  from  God.  This, 
in  the  beginning,  drew  attention  to  it,  created 
conviction  for  it,  attached  men  to  it;  and  it 
was  the  power  of  God,  witnessed  by  miracles, 
accompanying  the  Messenger  and  the  message, 
that  wrought  this  persuasion.     We  believe  in  it 


REVELATION.  51 

now  because  it  has  borne  the  great  test;  men 
then  believed  that  it  would  bear  the  test  because 
it  was  from  God.  If  they  had  not  believed  it  to 
be  from  God  they  would  never  have  accepted  it 
and  put  it  to  the  test. 

Suppose  now  we  turn  round  and  deny  the 
miracles  with  which  the  planting  of  our  religion 
is  historically  blended;  observe  in  what  a  pre- 
dicament we  place  both  the  Christian  fathers 
and  ourselves.  They  accepted  Christianity  for 
reasons  not  only  inadequate,  but  spurious.  We 
owe  this  greatest  of  blessings  to  their  credulity. 
If  they  had  known  how  to  detect  imposture  and 
sift  evidence  we  should  not  have  the  Gospel. 
But  the  system  which,  for  reasons  wholly  un- 
founded, got  a  chance  to  be  tried,  proves  to  be 
sound  and  beneficent.  That  which  there  was 
every  reason  to  reject  beforehand,  now  vindi- 
cates itself  as  the  system  which  there  is  every 
reason  to  accept.  Again,  we  reject  it  for  the 
very  reason  that  influenced  them  to  accept  it. 
But  if  they  had  not  accepted  it  for  a  false  cause, 
we  should  have  had  no  opportunity  to  accept  it 
for  a  true  one. 

Further,  the  miraculous  element,  which  played 
so  essential  a  part  in  the  beginning  and  has  been 
so  closely  identified  with  our  religion  through- 


52  REVELATION. 

out,  remains  an  integral  portion  of  the  structure. 
The  suggestion  has  been  made  that  the  mirac- 
ulous element  be  eliminated.  There  is  no  pro- 
cess by  which  this  can  be  accomplished.  The 
natural,  the  spiritual,  the  supernatural  are  in- 
extricably blended  in  the  only  records  of  the 
beginnings  of  our  religion  which  we  possess. 
Together  they  make  the  complete  and  unique 
phenomenon  which  has  attracted  the  eye  and 
won  the  heart  and  captured  the  understanding 
of  the  best  portion  of  the  world.  Take  out 
the  natural,  and  there  is  no  picture  ;  take  out 
the  spiritual  or  the  supernatural,  the  result 
is  the  same,  —  no  picture.^ 

VIII.  —  Inspiration  and  Revelation. 

The  use  of  the  term  "  inspiration "  directs 
thought  to  the  distinction  between  revelation 
and  inspiration.  By  "  revelation,"  as  already 
defined,  we  understand  the  disclosure  of  God  to 
men.  By  "  inspiration  "  we  mean  a  certain  ex- 
altation of  the  human  spirit,  produced  by  the 

1  The  natural  and  supernatural  are  blended  in  the  life  and 
teachings  of  Christ  in  the  most  harmonious  and  vigorous  way. 
Those  who  have  been  strenuous  to  reject  the  one,  though  they 
have  striven  long  and  hard  to  retain  the  other,  have  met 
with  very  partial  success.  —  President  Bascom:  Philosophy 
of  Religion,  p.  26L 


REVELATION.  53 

action  of  the  Divine  Spirit  upon  it,  in  which 
the  things  of  God,  the  realities  of  the  spirit- 
ual world,  become  subjects  of  consciousness.  It 
is  apparent  that  only  persons  can  be  inspired. 
When  we  speak  of  the  Bible,  or  of  any  book 
or  document,  as  "  inspired,"  we  do  so  by  the 
figure  of  speech  called  metonymy.  Strictly 
speaking,  language  is  never  inspired. 

1.  The  terms  employed  by  Saint  Paul,i  [^ 
speaking  of  the  "  sacred  writings,"  have  some- 
times been  interpreted  as  teaching  that  the 
language  of  the  Bible  is  inspired,  —  divinely 
breathed  (Oeoirvevaro^'),  The  only  consistent 
position  for  one  to  take  who  advocates  this  in- 
terpretation is  that  of  the  verbal  and  plenary 
inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  already  discussed. 
If  the  language  was  divinely  breathed,  it  was, 
in  the  most  exact  sense,  dictated ;  and  the  ex- 
treme doctrine  of  Voetius,  Gaussen,  and  the  post- 
Reformation  theologians  is  established.  That 
this  is  a  wholly  untenable  position,  in  general,  is 
now  so  uniformly  conceded  that  contention  is  su- 
perfluous ;  but  that  it  is  equally  an  error  in  this 
particular  case,  becomes  apparent  the  moment 
we  consider  the  facts.     Saint  Paul  was  speaking 

1  2  Timothy  iii.  16. 


54  REVELATION. 

of  the  Old-Testament  Scriptures.  We  have  the 
best  possible  testimony  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  he  regarded  the  language,  or  verbal  form, 
of  those  writings ;  it  is  furnished  by  his  own 
frequent  use  of  them  in  his  letters.  If  he  be- 
lieved that  the  language  was  inspired, — divinely 
breathed, — he  must  have  felt  under  a  constant 
and  solemn  obligation  to  get  the  exact  words  in 
every  case,  and  transcribe  them  with  scrupulous 
fidelity.  But  he  has  quoted  the  Old  Testament 
with  so  much  latitude  of  language,  in  many 
places,  as  to  leave  scholars  in  doubt  of  the 
identity  of  the  passage.  Surely  a  teacher  who 
himself  used  the  sacred  writings  with  so  little 
regard  to  verbal  exactness  must  not  be  appealed 
to  as  authority  for  the  doctrine  that  the  lan- 
guage of  Scripture  was  directly  dictated  by  the 
Divine  Spirit.  The  reasonable  view  is  that 
"men  spake  from  God,  being  moved  by  the 
Holy  Spirit."  ^  Their  inspiration  was  from  God : 
their  speech  was  their  own. 

2.  It  is  pertinent  to  remark  here,  that  since 
the  exigency  which  led  to  the  invention  of  the 
theory  of  complete  verbal  inspiration  has  passed, 
we  are  able  to  see  that  it  could  not  have  served 

1  2  Peter  i.  21. 


REVELATION.  ^o 

the  purpose  had  the   fact  been  as  the   theory 
supposed.     An  mspired  record  of  a  revelation 
implies  inspired  transcribers  and  translators.    If 
we  could  not  have  the  latter,  we  should  miss  the 
chief  advantage  of  having  the  former.    Our  Eng- 
lish Bible  would  be  only  a  translation  of  inspired 
language :    it  would   not   be  inspired  language. 
If  we  consider  the  number  of  various  readings 
and  of  errors  that  exist  in  the  text,  we  shall  be 
less  eager  to  fasten  a  theory  on  our  Bible  that 
at  this  date  would  be  quite  as  likely  to  stereo- 
type error  as  to  preserve  truth.    Time  was  when 
even  Christian  scholars  imagined  that  the  fact 
in  the  case  could  be  altered  by  a  tiieory  or  by 
belief.     Let  us  hope   that  a  better   mind   now 
universally  prevails ;  that  Christian  scholars,  at 
least,  are  convinced  of  the  futility,  if  not  of  the 
wickedness,  of   trying  to  make  the  fact  to  be 
other  than  it  is ;  and  that  the  public  is  desirous, 
not  of  believing  this  or  that  because  it  is  "  safe  " 
or  "orthodox,"  but  of  knowing  the  truth  and 
standing  on  it. 

IX.  —  Ends  which  Revelation  Subserves. 

We  turn  now  to  a  question   of  high  practi- 
cal concern  :  What  particular  ends  does  an  his- 


56  REVELATION. 

toric  revelation  subserve  ?  A  general  answer  to 
this  question  has  been  anticipated  in  showing 
the  dependence  of  the  natural  disclosures  of 
God  on  the  supernatural.  The  great  end  ac- 
complished by  a  special  revelation  is,  undoubt- 
edly, to  confirm  to  mankind  the  truth  of  the 
persuasion  borne  in  on  the  mind  from  a  study 
of  physical  nature  and  of  human  history. 

1.  But  there  are  certain  particular  ends 
which  a  revelation  serves  in  the  economy  of 
Providence,  first  among  which  may  be  no- 
ticed the  effect  it  has  on  religion.  Religion 
has  two  principal  parts:  (1)  the  objective 
facte, —  God,  duty,  immortality,  and  the  whole 
circle  and  system  of  doctrines  that  arise  out 
of  these  great  ideas ;  (2)  the  subjective  con- 
sciousness of  God,  duty, .  immortality,  and  the 
related  facts  ;  which  converts  theology  into 
piety,  ethics  into  righteousness,  and  dogma 
into  faith.  The  greatest  service  which  can 
be  performed  for  religion  is  to  translate  its 
facts  into  faiths ;  in  other  words,  to  make  men 
conscious  of  its  great  realities,  so  that  what 
they  assent  to  as  propositions  of  the  reason 
they  shall  feel  as  vital  impulses  of  the  soul. 
Tliis  is  the  hard  thing  to  accomplish  in  relig- 


REVELATION.  57 

ion.  Here  is  where  the  work  of  the  Church 
lags,  and  the  hearer  of  the  word,  going  away 
and  forgetting  what  manner  of  spirit  he  is  of, 
ceases  to  be  a  doer  of  the  word.  Any  influ- 
ence contributing  even  temporarily  to  this 
high  end  would  be  of  great  value;  but  an 
influence  drawing  men  steadily  and  power- 
fully in  this  direction  must  be  set  down 
among  the  chief  motive  forces  of  religion. 

Such  revelation  is.  Its  touch  communicates 
life  to  religion.  Whatever  any  one  may  hold 
as  to  revelation,  whether  he  believes  in  it  or 
rejects  it,  he  must  concede  that  the  effect  of 
it  in  the  world  and  on  religion  has  been  con- 
tinuously powerful.  It  is  in  connection  with 
what  is  believed  to  be  a  revelation  from  God 
that  religion  has  its  career  as  an  institution 
in  our  world ;  and  its  organized  forces,  its 
conquests,  and  its  mighty  influence  are  all  his- 
torically associated  with  revelation.  Not  only 
is  this  true  of  the  Christian  religion;  it  is  the 
fact  in  nearly  the  same  measure  with  the 
other  great  religions  of  mankind.  All  have 
received  the  quickening  and  impetus  which 
instituted  them  and  gave  them  at  once  diffu- 
sive energy  and  authority,   from  a  real  or  im- 


58  REVELATION. 

agined  disclosure  of  the  Divine  will.  Whether 
a  strictly  natural  religion  could  develop  the 
motive-power  to  organize  and  extend  and 
perpetuate  itself,  we  have  no  means  of  know- 
ing, because  we  have  no  example  of  anything 
of  the  kind.i 

2.  The  philosophy  of  the  effect  of  revela- 
tion on  religion  is  not  obscure.  It  is  wholly 
rational  and  explicable.  The  truth  which  rev- 
elation affirms  is  the  truth  which  the  hu- 
man spirit  prophesies.  That  God  is,  and  that 
there  is  another  and  more  permanent  realm 
than  this  with  which  we  are  in  contact  by 
our  senses,  is  the  prepossession  of  the  soul. 
To  this  prepossession  the  action  of  the  under- 
standing on  the  facts,  principles,  and  pro- 
cesses of  nature,  ministers.  Only  one  thing 
is   wanting   to   kindle   this   deep   prepossession 

1  The  only  exception  to  this  remark  which  would  be 
likely  to  occur  to  any  one  is,  we  judge,  the  religion  of 
the  Chinese,  or  that  part  of  their  religion  derived  from  Con- 
fucius. Whether  this  constitutes  a  real  exception  depends  on 
the  definition  that  should  be  given  to  the  word  "religion," 
as  well  as  upon  a  due  consideration  of  all  the  elements  that 
enter  into  the  great  religio-ethical  system  of  the  Chinese 
sage.  If  it  should  be  considered  an  exception  to  the  rule 
stated  above,  it  will  not  be  found  to  be  more  so  than  the 
Chinese  are  among  the  races  of  mankind. 


REVELATION.  59 

into   enthusiastic   faith;    that  one  thing   is  the 
personal   tidings   from    God    and    the   spiritual 
realm    which    revelation    supplies.      As    astro- 
nomy rises  up  triumphant,  a  new  science  and 
a  new  power  in  the  world,  from  the  moment 
the  telescope   begins   to  verify  the   predictions 
of    the    astronomer    by   revealing    the    orb   he 
had    located   by   calculation,   so   religion,   rein- 
forced by  revelation,  takes   on   new   life,  feels 
the  spring  of  fresh  energy,  goes   forth  in  the 
assurance    of   victory   to   the    conquest   of    the 
nations.     Revelation   not    only   satisfies   a   rea- 
sonable   demand    of    the   intellect:   it  inspires 
the    soul.     It   is   the    Divine   touch,   at   which 
humanity  thrills  and  rises  to  newness  of  life. 
Historically,  revelation  has  been  like  the  com- 
ing of  spring  to  the  seed-germs:  it  has  started 
into    high   and    continuous   activity   the   moral 
energies  of  man. 

3.  Descending  from  these  more  general 
ends  to  which  revelation  contributes,  we  may 
observe  others  that  are  special.  As  a  free 
being  it  devolves  on  man  to  determine  what 
shall  be  the  aim  of  his  life.  He  is  possessed 
of  energies:  what  use  shall  he  make  of  them? 
He  is  gifted  with  powers:  in  what  directions 


60  REVELATION. 

shall  he  guide  their  activity?  The  answer  to 
these  questions  waits  on  the  answer  to  an- 
other. Who  and  what  is  he  ?  He  will  an- 
swer those  inquiries  according  to  the  idea  he 
has  of  his  own  rank  in  the  scale  of  being.  If 
he  takes  himself  to  be  an  animal  merely,  —  with 
an  intellectual  attachment,  perhaps,  but  still 
essentially  and  finally  an  animal,  —  he  will 
solve  the  question  as  to  the  aim  of  life  and 
the  use  of  his  powers  in  one  way :  he  will 
be  apt  to  adopt  the  ancient  formula,  "  Let  us 
eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  If  he 
takes  himself  to  be  a  child  of  God,  heir  of 
immortality,  and  capable  of  indefinite  expan- 
sion in  knowledge  and  goodness,  he  will  an- 
swer the  question  in  another  and  quite 
different  way.  For  it  all  hinges  on  what 
he  really  is,  —  on  his  rank  in  the  scale  of 
being.  He  can  set  his  sails  for  this  port  or 
that.  His  value  to  himself  and  to  the  world 
depends  on  whether  he  sets  them  for  this 
port  or  that. 

It  is  apparent  at  once  that  the  whole  as- 
pect of  a  man's  life  is  changed  by  the  proper 
answer  to  this  profoundly  interesting  and  su- 
premely important  inquiry.     Indeed,  the   most 


REVELATION.  61 

subtle  and  destructive  enemy  of  high  endeavor 
is  the  doubt  that  lurks  in  so  many  minds, 
whether,  after  all,  their  destiny  is  not  to  lie 
down  with  the  brutes  at  last,  in  a  common 
utter  extinction.  Doubt  is  what  damns  men. 
If  none  of  us  ever  doubted  that  God  is,  as 
really  as  we  are;  that  our  being  is  linked  to 
His ;  and  that  we  are,  therefore,  shut  up  to  a 
final  necessity  of  seeking  our  good  and  joy 
in  that  which  is  good  in  His  sight,  —  none  of 
us  would  ever  swerve  far  from  rectitude.  It  is 
our  distrust  of  this  glorious  and  saving  truth 
that  hands  us  over  to  the  service  of  evil. 
Anything,  therefore,  however  disagreeable  or 
painful,  that  awakens  us  to  the  eternal  fact, 
and  keeps  vigilant  in  us  the  consciousness 
of  our  Divine  birthright,  is  an  unspeakable 
blessing.  Sorrow,  disappointment,  loss,  are, 
indeed,  sanctified  as  well  as  justified,  if  they 
have  the  effect  to  break  the  fetters  of  sense 
and  set  the  spirit  free. 

But  there  is  a  more  excellent  way.  It 
should  not  be  necessary  that  we  be  stripped 
of  earthly  goods  and  scourged,  in  order  that 
we  become  alive  to  heavenly  joy.  Access  of 
worldly    properties   and    honors   ought    not  to 


62  REVELATION. 

dull  the  soul's  sensibility.  On  the  contrary, 
growth  in  power  and  means  and  influence 
should  stimulate  the  inner  and  true  life  of 
the  spirit.  Tt  would,  if  the  conviction  of  the 
reality,  and  hence  of  the  transcendent  superi- 
ority, of  spiritual  things  were  present  with  us 
from  the  beginning.  But  too  often,  too  uni- 
formly, this  conviction,  instead  of  arming  and 
guarding  us  from  the  first,  is  among  the  last 
resources  we  acquire. 

4.  Revelation  answers  the  important  in- 
quiry by  assuring  man  that  there  is  a  perma- 
nent part  of  him,  and  that  it  is  spirit.  His 
rank  is  determined  by  his  origin,  as  the  rank 
of  every  being  is.  Origin  concludes  nature 
and  destiny.  So  much  of  man  as  had  its 
origin  in  dust  must  return  to  dust.  If  that 
is  the  whole  story  as  to  his  origin,  that  also 
is  the  whole  story  as  to  his  destiny.  In  af- 
firming the  super-physical  and  divine  origin 
of  man  revelation  touches  the  precise  spring 
that  vibrates  to  moral  truth  and  immortal 
hope.  The  facts  are  not  changed ;  man  is  no 
more  than  before.  But  the  fact  is  certified, 
and  the  spirit  within  leaps  in  recognizing 
response  to  the  spirit  without. 


REVELATION.  63 

5.  The  manner  in  which  this  end  is  ac- 
complished can  only  be  hinted  here.  Con- 
sider that  the  common  trait  of  revealed 
religion  is  a  complement  of  organized  in- 
strumentalities for  worship  and  for  work. 
Consider  the  educating  influence  of  the  ser- 
vices and  symbols,  declaring  the  majesty  and 
authority  of  the  Eternal  and  proclaiming  the 
spiritual  kinship  of  man  with  God.  Regularly 
and  almost  daily  the  eye  receives  the  impres- 
sive lesson  and  passes  it  on  to  the  mind. 
Our  worship  is  often  described  as  "  barren ; " 
and  so  it  is.  Yet,  should  we  take  from  it  all 
that  appeals  to  eye  and  ear  —  to  the  senses 
—  and  all  that  is  addressed  to  the  social  na- 
ture and  the  sentiment  of  beauty,  we  should 
have  a  new  perception  of  the  meaning  of  the 
word  "  barren."  So  much  does  even  our  se- 
vere simplicity  of  worship  yet  depend  on  ex- 
ternal impressions.  But  in  the  earlier  day  this 
vast  resource  was  used  in  a  degree  that  seems 
to  us  now  childish.  Rather  it  was  adapted 
to  childhood;  it  was  the  wise  means  employed 
by  the  Author  of  religion  to  print  its  eternal 
facts  deep  into  the  consciousness  of  the  race. 

6.  If   mankind   were   fully  enlightened,   and 


64  REVELATION. 

could  be  depended  on  to  be  perfectly  self-con- 
sistent, we  should  calculate  that  having  deter- 
mined their  rank  in  the  creation,  and  seen  the 
ends  to  which  their  style  of  being  points,  they 
would  be  found  unanimously  pursuing  the  ap- 
pointed path  of  life.  But  if  there  is  one  thing 
in  regard  to  which  we  may  be  entirely  certain, 
it  is  that  men  are  not  agreed  in  following  out 
the  ends  contemplated  in  their  nature.  If  it  is 
allowable  to  say  that  they  all  desire  one  thing 
ultimately,  as  happiness,  it  does  not  admit  of 
dispute  that  they  go  many  ways  —  frequently 
opposite  ways — to  attain  it.  Ignorance  of  what 
is  best  for  them  lies  at  the  root  of  most  of  the 
folly  displayed  in  this  particular.  It  may  be  con- 
tended with  much  force  that  men  know  better 
than  they  do ;  that  it  is  their  conceit  of  their 
own  wisdom,  allied  with  a  large  human  element 
of  pure  perversity,  that  is  at  fault ;  and  that  the 
remainder  may  be  explained  by  the  inveterate 
preference  of  the  average  mortal  for  darkness 
to  light. 

This  is  a  plausible  indictment,  certainly ;  but 
it  is  hardly  judicial.  When,  in  one  of  our  heated 
political  campaigns,  we  find  tlie  journals  and 
orators  of  each  of  the   great   political   parties 


REVELATION.  65 

charging  that  the  other  party  is  actuated  at 
bottom  by  base  motives,  and  that  the  member- 
ship of  the  other  party  —  comprising  one  half  the 
people  of  the  country  —  are  really  bent  on  bring- 
ing down  around  their  heads  the  goodly  fabric  of 
free  government,  we  make  the  necessary  deduc- 
tions and  allowances  for  partisan  inflammation 
and  the  exigencies  of  the  campaign.  As  matter 
of  fact,  most  of  the  people  on  both  sides  are 
patriotic  and  equally  desirous  of  advancing  them- 
selves and  their  country  in  prosperity  and  honor. 
It  is  much  the  same  with  the  question  before 
us.  In  our  haste  we  accuse  our  fellow-men  of 
utter  depravity  and  perversity.  We  say  they 
know  better ;  that  they  are  bent  on  wrong,  and 
only  satisfied  with  iniquity.  But  in  our  sober 
moods  we  do  not  frame  an  indictment  that 
sweeps  ourselves,  along  with  condemned  hu- 
manity, into  the  criminal's  dock.  We  discrimi- 
nate and  we  try  to  be  just ;  and  we  say  that  lack 
of  enlightenment,  mistake  as  to  true  well-being, 
inability  to  perceive  the  real  ends  of  human  ex- 
istence, and  a  sad  incapacity  to  appreciate  and 
enjoy  the  higher  range  of  motive  and  activity, 
are  the  explanation  of  an  incalculable  amount  of 
wrong-doing  and  low  living. 


66  KEVELATION. 

In  this  mood  we  study  carefully  the  sprmgs 
of  human  conduct,  and  come  presently  to  a  set- 
tled conviction  that  we  can  never  expect  to  have 
a  really  good  world  until  we  can  get  into  men's 
minds  a  luminous  idea  of  what  goodness  .is. 
The  life  of  any  nation,  of  any  family,  of  almost 
any  individual,  is  a  translation  of  the  concep- 
tions of  the  nation,  family,  or  individual.  As 
an  author  can  put  no  more  complete  and  exact 
"  system  "  of  any  subject  —  philosophy,  ethics, 
theology,  astronomy  —  into  his  book  than  exists 
already  in  his  mind,  so  it  is  not  rational  to  ex- 
pect a  type  of  life  from  any  portion  of  mankind 
higher  than  the  ideas  of  life  which  that  portion 
of  mankind  entertains.  All  efforts  to  improve 
any  class  will  be  futile,  or  at  best  will  result  in 
a  merely  transient  change  of  habit,  unless  their 
minds  are  opened  and  elevated  so  as  to  admit 
truer  and  loftier  conceptions. 

7.  Now  revelation  indicates  its  divine  mission 
to  men  at  just  tliis  point  of  need.  It  teaches 
them  what  their  real  good  is,  on  the  authority  of 
Him  who  created  them  and  who  therefore  knows. 
The  various  and  conflicting  opinions  they  have 
on  that  subject  are  an  obviously  unsafe  guide. 
If  they  could  have  just  what  they  most  need, 


REVELATION.  67 

and  what  in  their  sanest  moments  they  most 
ardently  desire,  it  would  be  an  authoritative 
statement  of  what  is  best  for  them.  This  is 
what  revelation  furnishes.  In  both  Testaments 
of  our  Bible  this  inquiry  of  the  sincere  soul  is 
met  by  a  complete  and  final  answer.  In  the  Old 
Testament  it  is  cast  in  ever  memorable  words : 
"  What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  0  man, 
but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God  ? "  Different  in  phrase, 
but  identical  in  import,  is  that  other  noble  senti- 
ment of  the  wise  king :  "  Fear  God  and  keep  his 
commandments ;  for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of 
man."  He  who  will  hearken  unto  the  word  of 
the  Lord  has  no  longer  any  excuse  for  stum- 
bling. He  who  will  not  hearken  is  as  certainly 
without  excuse ;  for  he  not  only  sins  in  the  light 
but  against  the  light. 

In  the  New  Testament  the  answer  is  still  more 
complete  and  unequivocal.  That  record  teaches 
that  sin  is  death ;  that  righteousness  is  life  and 
peace ;  that  the  worth  of  a  man  consists  not 
in  his  talents  nor  in  his  accumulations,  but  in 
his  virtue ;  and  that  human  happiness  is  always 
commensurate  with  human  goodness.  Or,  to 
state  the  same  great  New-Testament  truth  in 


68  REVELATION. 

different  terms,  man  was  made  to  be  saved.^  It 
is  self-evident  that  the  best  thing  for  him  is  to 
attain  that  for  which  he  was  made.  The  mean- 
ing of  the  mission  of  Jesus  is  comprised  in 
these  two  facts  :  (1)  that  sinful  men  are  per- 
ishing men ;  (2)  that  they  cannot  be  depended 
on  to  lift  themselves  out  of  sin,  and  consequent 
wretchedness,  without  Divine  help.  We  submit 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  Parable  of  the 
Prodigal  Son,  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  —  we 
might  almost  say  the  entire  New  Testament,  — 
in  support  of  these  propositions. 

8.  Unfortunately,  it  does  not  follow. that  men 
will  do  what  is  best  for  them  when  they  have 
learned,  on  Divine  authority,  what  that  is.  The 
teacher  of  morals  and  the  preacher  of  religion 

1  For  the  benefit  of  such  readers  as  may  not  have  the 
opportunity  to  see  the  other  Manuals  of  Doctrine  and  Duty  in 
this  series,  we  may  remark  here  that  in  the  Universalist  view 
salvation  is  moral  perfection.  This  is  wliat  man  was  made 
for;  this  is  what  Jesus  Christ  came  to  insure  to  him.  It  is  an 
attainment  with  which  times  and  places  have  nothing  to  do, 
except  that  every  attainment  occurs  at  some  time  and  in  some 
place.  Every  act  or  acquisition  which  contributes  to  our  moral 
improvement  enters  into  the  process  of  our  salvation.  Jesus 
Christ  is  pre-eminently  our  Saviour  because  he  extends  to  us, 
in  its  fullest  measure  and  in  its  purest  form,  the  help  we 
require  in  the  most  critical  crises  of  our  struggle.  He  is  the 
Alpha  and  Omega,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  our  victory. 


REVELATION.  69 

encounter  here  their  most  discouraging  repulse. 
When  they  have  made  it  clear  that  men  are  the 
children  of  God,  and  have  pointed  out  the  range 
of  motive  and  ambition  which  such  a  noble  line- 
age implies,  they  naturally  look  to  see  an  im- 
mediate elevation  of  the  whole  purpose  of  life. 
Man  is  a  reasoning  being ;  he  ought  also  to  be 
a  reasonable  being.  If  he  were,  it  would  be 
almost  a  matter  of  mathematical  calculation  that, 
having  been  shown  his  real  and  lofty  place  in 
the  scale  of  creation,  he  would  be  urged  by  an 
irresistible  impulse  to  be  worthy  of  it.  But  this 
reasonable  expectation  is  too  generally  doomed  to 
disappointment.  In  one  of  his  quaint  and  pow- 
erful sermons,  Thomas  Whittemore  describes  an 
interview  with  the  deacon  of  a  Baptist  Church. 
The  deacon  professed  that  he  could  be  a  Uni- 
versalist  if  any  passage  of  Scripture  were  shown 
him  declaring  unequivocally  that  the  mission  of 
Jesus  extends  to  men  after  death.  Mr.  Wliitte- 
more  quoted  several  grand  declarations  which 
he  believed  involved  that  conclusion ;  "  but  the 
deacon  shook  his  head."  Finally  Mr.  Whitte- 
more came  to  Romans  xiv.  7-11,  which  he  recited 
slowly  and  with  triumphant  emphasis.  Said  Mr. 
Whittemore,  "  I  looked  to  see  him  spring  from 


70  REVELATION. 

the  floor;  but  he  did  not."  The  case  seemed 
clear  to  the  teacher ;  the  pupil's  mind  was  yet 
enveloped  in  the  cloud  of  long-growing  associa- 
tions. It  would  take  time  and  renewed  dispen- 
sations of  light  to  lead  him  out  into  open  day. 

It  is  the  same  in  every  department  of  moral 
or  religious  progress.  Few  persons  advance  to 
new  and  higher  ground  at  a  bound.  Gradually 
the  mind  opens,  slowly  old  ties  and  associations 
are  unknit,  and  with  hesitation  and  alternations 
of  progress  and  retreat  most  men  go  forward. 
It  is  not  wonderful  that  so  large  a  per  cent  of 
the  converts  of  religion  go  back  to  their  former 
life,  or  that  so  many  of  those  who,  in  a  season 
of  temperance  revival  take  the  pledge,  fall  away 
shortly  afterward.  The  cords  of  custom  are 
tough,  the  bias  of  evil  and  of  ignorance  is  not 
soon  overcome. 

So  it  comes  to  pass  that  neither  the  knowl- 
edge what  their  rank  is  among  the  creations  of 
God,  nor  what  is  best  for  them,  induces  men 
generally  to  forsake  a  low  plane  of  life  or  to 
enter  earnestly  on  broader  and  better  ways. 
We  must  reckon  with  depravity,  a  narrow  mind, 
pitiful  weakness,  vanity,  and  wilfulness.  Many 
know  the  right  and  still  the  wrong  pursue.     At 


REVELATION.  71 

this  hardest  and  most  hopeless  point  in  the 
task  of  the  reformer,  revelation  comes  to  his 
aid.  The  Christian  revelation,  of  which  we 
here  particularly  speak,  has,  as  its  crowning 
excellence,  the  power  to  inspire  men  with  good 
desire.  It  is  able  to  beget  within  them  the  im- 
pulse to  righteousness,  —  to  start  them  on  the 
highway  of  purity  and  goodness.  Note  how  this 
is  accomplished. 

9.  The  law  is  that  the  power  which  propels 
a  human  soul  along  the  path  of  the  higher  life 
must  be  begotten  in  the  soul.  Wherever  else  it 
may  have  originated,  it  is  not  motive-power  to 
the  spirit  of  man  until  it  springs  up  within. 
Sometimes,  and  with  some  natures,  a  clear  per- 
ception of  the  situation  incites  this  inward  im- 
pulse ;  but  with  more  it  does  not.  They  see 
that  they  belong  to  God,  and  by  virtue  of  that 
relation  are  bound  to  render  Him  their  loyalty 
and  love.  But  they  feel  no  deep  desire  within, 
urging  them  to  rise  and  rush  into  their  Father's 
waiting  arms.  To  conclude  and  consummate  all 
other  help,  therefore,  men  require  to  have  motive- 
poiver  generated  within  them.  To  this  demand 
the  Christian  revelation  answers  by  its  personal 
forces.     For  the  form  of  this  revelation  is  not 


72  REVELATION. 

documentary,  nor  statutory,  nor  dogmatic :  it  is 
a  revelation  in  a  person,  —  Jesus,  the  Christ.  If 
the  person  possess  sufficient  moral  power  the 
problem  is  solved. 

10.  Without  stopping  to  discuss  here  any  of 
the  questions  raised  over  the  nature,  rank,  or 
offices  of  Jesus,  we  may  anticipate  nearly  unani- 
mous agreement  with  us  in  the  statement  that 
he  has  proved,  in  the  trial  of  eighteen  centuries, 
the  most  potent  inspirer  of  moral  life  and  en- 
ergy, in  souls  before  dormant  or  dead,  the  world 
has  known.  In  the  plan  of  God  souls  are  used 
to  quicken  souls.  To  name  the  epoch-makers 
of  history  is  to  prove  this,  —  Abraham,  Moses, 
David,  Paul,  Plato,  Confucius,  Buddha,  Moham- 
med, Augustine,  Savonarola,  Luther.  These  were 
mighty  souls,  luminous  and  instinct  with  truth, 
so  that  their  touch  gave  light  and  life  to  other 
souls.  They  have  ruled  the  world  from  invisi- 
ble thrones,  because  at  bottom  it  is  a  spiritual 
world,  and  they  were  spiritual  sovereigns. 

But  Jesus  easily  transcends  them  all.  Wher- 
ever his  spirit  touches  anotlier  spirit,  something 
is  communicated.  No  one  who  has  ever  known 
Jesus  can  be  quite  the  same  that  he  was  before. 
There  is  access  of  a  new  power,  the  undying 


REVELATION.  73 

charm  of  a  new  grace.  Somehow  this  man 
finds  that  chord  in  the  human  soul  which,  once 
thrilled,  never  ceases  to  vibrate.  The  witnesses 
to  this  fact  are  as  often  those  who  deny  his 
supernatural  claims  as  those  who  assert  them. 
Robert  Elsmere  supposed  he  had  found  a  way 
of  being  religious  without  being  a  believer  in 
anything  supernatural.  He  emptied  himself  of 
what  have  usually  been  regarded  as  the  essential 
contents  of  Christianity.  What  did  he  then  do  ? 
He  filled  up  the  void  with  love  and  reverence 
and  imitation  —  a  sort  of  worship  —  of  Jesus. 
To  inspire  others  to  practise  self-denial,  courage, 
and  gentleness,  he  must  himself  first  be  inspired. 
There  was  no  source  in  all  the  world,  in  all  the 
company  of  the  great  and  good,  to  which  he 
could  turn  for  personal  inspiration,  save  to  the 
Son  of  Man,  whom  hie  refused  to  recognize  as 
also  Son  of  God.  The  testimony  alike  of  those 
who  adore  him  and  of  those  who  would  dis- 
crown him  supports  the  memorable  confession 
of  Peter  :  "  Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go  ?  Thou 
only  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life." 

The  conclusion  seems  not  unwarranted,  that 
the  Christian  revelation  is  essential  to  the  best 
development    and     truest    happiness    of     man- 


74  REVELATION. 

kind.  We  may  at  least  claim  that  these 
ends  are  not  attained  without  its  powerful 
aid ;  nor  can  we  see  how  they  could  be  with- 
out that  or  something  equivalent.  We  must 
not  commit  the  fallacy  of  confounding  desire 
with  need.  The  value  of  a  thing  in  the  mar- 
kets of  the  world  is  determined  by  the  desire 
men  have  for  it.  But  in  the  higher  depart- 
ments of  knowledge  and  morals  and  religion, 
the  value  of  a  thing  cannot  be  left  to  that 
decision.  Frequently,  there  is  only  scant  in- 
dication of  a  desire  for  the  things  of  most 
real  value.  Those  who  show  the  least  appre- 
ciation of  the  school  are  uniformly  those  who 
would  be  most  benefited  by  cultivating  its 
acquaintance.  The  boor  flouts  instruction  in 
manners;  but  he  needs  nothing  else  so  impera- 
tively. The  partisan  politician  never  wearies 
in  his  gibes,  though  he  often  exhausts  his  wit,  at 
the  political  reformer.  But  it  is  plain  enough 
that  he  needs  most  what  he  most  derides. 

So,  when  we  have  shown  that  the  Christian 
revelation  supplies  what  all  human  beings  re- 
quire for  their  perfection  and  peace,  it  must 
not  be  thought  a  pertinent  answer  to  say, 
"  But   men    do   not   seem   to   desire   this   good 


REVELATION.  75 

overmuch."  This  may  be  true  or  not  true ; 
but  if  it  were  the  fact  that  the  desire  for 
Christianity  has  to  be  created,  or  at  least  edu- 
cated, that  would  not  disprove  that  it  is  the 
chief  good  of  man.  We  incline  to  think, 
however,  that  the  "  natural  aversion "  of  men 
to  the  Gospel  has  been  much  exaggerated. 
Most  of  the  repugnance  to  the  religion  of 
Christ  is  recoil  from  the  irrational  and  dread- 
ful dogmas  that  have  to  so  large  an  extent 
usurped  its  name.  But  the  truth  on  which 
we  wish  to  fix  the  reader's  mind  here  is 
that  in  all  his  higher  interests  man  "  needs  a 
teacher  to  admonish  him."  We  do  not  send 
out  missionaries  to  persuade  men  to  plant  and 
reap,  to  buy  and  sell  and  get  gain,  to  delve 
in  the  mine  and  sail  the  sea,  to  eat,  drink, 
and  be  merry ;  for  they  are  eager  enough  to 
secure  all  these  forms  of  good.  It  is  other- 
wise with  regard  to  the  durable  riches  of 
righteousness.  We  do  send  out  missionaries 
to  persuade  men  to  seek  first  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  His  righteousness,  and  to  clothe 
themselves  with  those  garments  of  grace 
which  never  wax  old ;  because,  while  these 
are  concerns  of  the  highest  and  most  abiding 


76  REVELATION. 

importance,  we  know  from  long  and  painful 
experience  that  they  are  not  pursued  b}^  men 
generally  with  either  alacrity  or  enthusiasm. 

It  is  the  peculiar  and  abiding  excellence  of 
revealed  religion,  that  it  develops  for  itself 
the  spirit  and  the  instrumentalities  which 
press  its  benefits  on  the  attention  of  those 
who  need  them.  Christianity  is  often  de- 
scribed as  "the  missionary  religion."  This  is 
its  spirit.  It  cannot  confine  its  good  to  its 
present  circle  of  beneficiaries.  It  flows  out  to 
others;  it  knocks  at  all  doors; 'it  offers  to 
share  its  light  and  blessing  with  all  mankind. 
Once  a  soul  is  infected  with  its  divine  conta- 
gion, he  longs  and  burns  to  communicate  the 
unspeakable  rapture. 

Now  this  spirit  begets  its  needful  and  a}> 
propriate  form.  The  Gospel  does  not  waste 
its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air;  it  grows  an 
organism  —  a  Church.  This  is  "  the  body  "  it 
requires  to  make  it  a  serviceable  thing  to 
mankind.  Without  becoming  instituted  and 
taking  its  place  as  a  working  force  among 
the  other  institutions  of  our  world,  Christian- 
ity could  accomplish  little.  But  organized  and 
supplied  with  the  instruments  of  a  vai'ied  and 


REVELATION.  77 

practical    service,  it  at   once  takes  its    place 
among    the   great    forces   of    the   world,  with 
which   society   and    government   must    reckon, 
and    lays   its   mighty   hand    on   every   interest 
and  enterprise  of  mankind.     And  organization 
is  its  law  as  freedom  is  its  life.     If,  therefore, 
Christianity  be   administered  with   any  intelli- 
gent  comprehension   of   its   genius,   it   is   sure 
to    be    an    aggressive    religion.     Such    it    has 
proved    itself    to    be    under    every   variety    of 
polity.     This  was  its  character  in  the  earliest 
period  of  its  activity,  before  schism  appeared; 
this  continued   to   be  its   strong   trait  when  it 
was    rent    with    faction    and    convulsed    with 
controversies;    this    spirit    reappeared    as    the 
predominant  impulse  in  the  Reformation;  and 
it  marks   every  branch  of  the  Church,  east  or 
west,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  in  the  whole  of  the 
modern  era.     In  this  is  at  once  the  hope  of  the 
Church  and  of  the  world.     Our  religion  will  not 
rest  until  it  has  established  righteousness  in  the 
earth,  and  the  isles  wait  for  its  law. 

X.  —  Theosophy  and  Revelation. 

In  every  age  since  Plato,  and  in  India  be- 
fore his   time,  there  have    been    persons   who 


78  REVELATION. 

have  professed  a  peculiar  wisdom  in  Divine 
things.  In  some  cases  the  knowledge  has 
been  supposed  to  be  due  to  a  secret,  at  first 
imparted  from  God,  or  from  the  gods,  and 
piously  preserved  and  handed  down  through 
a  chosen  body  of  men,  like  the  Egyptian 
priests.  The  ancient  theurgy  seems  to  have 
been  of  this  type.  In  other  instances  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  of  the  invisible  realms 
was  imagined  to  be  accessible  by  means  of  a 
long  series  of  physical  exercises,  sometimes 
accompanied  with  chantings  or  wailings.  A 
more  refined  type  of  theosophy  was  that  of 
the  Egyptian  Platonists,  and  of  various  mod- 
ern sects,  both  in  Asia  and  in  Europe,  who  hold 
that  intercourse  with  God  is  possible  to  the 
devout  and  meditative  "in  every  nation  under 
the  whole  heaven."  To  this  has  often  been 
joined  the  idea  of  communication  with  other 
spiritual  beings.  The  student  of  the  subject 
is  surprised  to  find  that  there  has  been  no 
people  so  rude,  no  age  so  sensual,  no  class  so 
cultivated,  as  not  to  have  representatives 
among  the  Pyrrhonists,  or  theurgists,  or  mys- 
tics, or  theosophists,  or  seers.  Although  the 
Christian  Church   has  been  supplied  with   the 


REVELATION.  79 

records  of  a  special  revelation,  and  has  pro- 
fessed to  build  both  its  organization  and  its 
doctrines  on  the  Scriptures,  persons,  parties, 
and  even  sects,  have  arisen  in  it  from  time  to 
time,  who,  like  Miguel  Molinos,  like  Sweden- 
borg,  like  Madame  Guyon  and  the  Quietists, 
have  taught  that  there  is  still  an  open  way, 
by  spiritual  contemplation,  to  direct  personal 
knowledge  of   God  and  spiritual   things. 

1.  It  is  easy  to  scoff  at  this,  and  wave  it 
one  side  under  the  stigma  of  fanaticism.  But 
there  is  a  truth  at  the  heart  of  these  phenom- 
ena. God  is ;  men  are  the  children  of  God, 
bearing  His  image.  To  know  God  is  the  eter- 
nal quest  of  the  human  soul.  Moreover,  He  can- 
not be  far  from  any  one  of  us,  since  in  Him 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  There 
is  no  reason,  therefore,  to  question,  but  every 
reason  in  sound  philosophy  to  believe,  that 
the  human  spirit  may  put  itself  in  such 
relations  with  the  Divine  spirit  as  to  be 
conscious  of  God.  This  is  the  truth  in  the- 
osophy,  in  mysticism,  in  quietism.  The  same 
truth  has  been  apprehended  by  pious  souls  in 
every  branch  of  the  Church,  and  is  stored  up 
in   the   devotional    literature   of   all   the    sects. 


80  REVELATION. 

It  is  a  precious  truth.  The  Christian  teacher 
or  preacher  has  no  call  to  antagonize  it.  On 
the  contrary,  he  should  recognize  it  and  rest 
in  it  as  one  of  the  great  spiritual  facts  under- 
lying all  religion. 

2.  In  the  means  used  to  attain  this  spirit- 
ual illumination  lies  the  secret  of  personal 
faith  in  God  and  lurks  the  danger  of  relig- 
ious delusion.  By  prayer,  by  contemplation,  by 
long  and  assiduous  cultivation  of  the  power 
of  spiritual  discernment,  does  the  spirit's 
eye  open  on  the  "  things  of  God."  There  is 
no  other  means  of  awaking  to  spiritual  con- 
sciousness and  remaining  awake.  But  experi- 
ence proves  that  not  every  person  can  engage 
in  this  work  of  abstraction  from  the  world  of 
our  physical  abode  and  penetration  into  the 
more  real  world  of  the  spirit,  without  loss  of 
his  firm  footing  as  an  earthly  pilgrim.  It 
is  essential  to  our  usefulness  here  that  we 
should  preserve  a  solid  hold  on  the  material 
world ;  it  is  just  as  essential  that  we  should 
learn  how  to  discern  spiritual  things.  The 
natural  and  tlie  spiritual  are  parts  of  one 
whole.  The  eye  that  is  closed  to  either  sees 
only  half  the  truth.     But  as  an  exclusive  pur- 


REVELATION.  81 

suit  of  earthly  good  distorts  the  moral  vision 
and  disfigures  the  moral  symmetry  of  a  man, 
so  absorption  in  the  search  after  God  and  the 
unseen  tends  to  disturb  the  natural  play  of 
the  perceptions,  and  imports  into  the  field  of 
sense  measures  and  standards  which  cannot 
be  used.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  theoso- 
phists,  in  India  or  in  America,  enjoy  the  repu- 
tation of  people  who  are  striving 

"  To  wind  themselves  too  high 
For  mortal  man  beneath  the  sky." 

3.  The  greater  sobriety  and  practical  use- 
fulness of  those  who  rest  in  the  doctrine  of  a 
revelation  made  through  chosen  oracles  at  ap- 
pointed epochs  hints  the  truth  that  as  every 
man  cannot  be  his  own  astronomer,  so  it  is 
not  expected  that  every  man  shall  be  his  own 
seer.  There  may  be  no  decree  of  nature  or 
God  that  prohibits  any  man  from  becoming  an 
astronomer;  but  it  is  not  practicable  for  every 
one  to  perfect  himself  in  that  science.  So 
there  may  be  no  ordinance  of  God  against 
every  man's  inquiring  into  the  deep  things  of 
the  Spirit  and  becoming  at  length  as  sure  of 
them  as  he  ever  was  of  the  natural  earth  and 
sky ;  but  it  is  practically  impossible  to  a  useful 
6 


&J,  REVELATION. 

citizen  of  this  world.  The  daily  welfare  of  man- 
kind is  as  truly  subserved  by  a  special  revela- 
tion as  are  the  higher  interests  of  the  soul. 
We  need  have  no  quarrel  with  any  seer,  real 
or  alleged,  ancient  or  modern.  What  he  as- 
serts is  confirmation  of  what  we  teach ;  but 
for  the  purposes  of  our  present  state  of  being 
we  can  say  to  our  fellows  generally,  if  not  to 
him,  "  Yet  show  we  unto  you  a  more  excel- 
lent way." 

XL  —  Interpretation  of  Scripture. 

The  subject  of  the  interpretation  of  the 
Scriptures  is  too  large  to  enter  upon  in  detail 
in  a  brief  survey  like  this.  The  principles 
involved  in  rational  and  reverent  exegesis 
have  been  implied  in  the  account  already  giv- 
en of  the  Bible  and  of  the  different  theories 
of  the  mode  of  its  production.  To  make  our 
summary  of  revelation  complete,  however,  it 
is  necessary  to  add  here  a  word  directly  on 
the  interpretation  of  Scripture. 

1.  The  same  principles  which  a  competent 
and  fair-minded  scholar  would  apply  in  the 
interpretation  of  any  ancient  book,  produced  in 
a  foreign  clime  and   among   peoples  no   longer 


REVELATION.  83 

maintaining  a  national  existence,  should  be 
applied  to  the  study  of  the  Bible.  Its  lan- 
guage, its  history,  its  customs,  its  characters 
must  be  studied  as  these  are  in  secular  liter- 
ature. The  philology  and  grammar,  and  the 
entire  critical  apparatus  of  a  Biblical  student 
differ  in  no  essential  respect  from  those  em- 
ployed by  the  student  of  the  Vedas  or  of  Ho- 
mer. That  is,  in  both  instances  he  would 
wish  to  know  the  places  and  the  persons  and 
the  circumstances  as  accurately  as  the  best 
means  now  existing  will  permit,  as  an  indis- 
pensable condition  of  understanding  the  written 
record ;  and  he  would  use  the  accepted  prin- 
ciples of  the  language  as  modified  by  this 
particular  author  in  determining  the  meaning 
of  any  passage. 

2.  The  meaning  of  the  Bible  is  the  Bible. 
The  interpreter  gets  all  the  light  from  histo- 
ry, biography,  political  institutions,  social  and 
tribal  customs,  habits  of  thought,  peculiarities 
of  language,  usage  of  the  author,  that  it  is 
possible  to  obtain,  not  to  draw  a  desired 
meaning  out  of  the  text,  but  to  gain  its  true 
meaning.  The  question  he  continually  asks 
himself    is,  What  did   the   writer    or   speaker 


84  REVELATION. 

mean  here  ?  In  this  inquiry  he  does  not  con- 
cern himself  with  the  truth  or  falseness  of 
the  thing  expressed:  he  asks  only  for  its  pre- 
cise and  full  meaning.  Reconciliations  may 
be  demanded  afterwards:  they  are  not  to  be 
thought  of  now. 

3.  Having  determined  the  meaning  of  Holy 
Scripture,  the  interpreter  has  concluded  his 
task.  On  the  basis  of  the  true  meaning  the 
Christian  teacher,  preacher,  or  theologian  may 
determine  doctrines,  build  systems,  enforce  du- 
ties. These  should  be  either  directly. taught  by 
the  language  of  the  Scriptures,  or  legitimately 
deduced  from  the  unquestioned  meaning.  The 
practice  has  been,  to  no  small  extent,  to  con- 
struct a  theological  system,  draw  out  a 
scheme  of  doctrines  in  harmony  with  the 
system,  and  then  proceed  to  "  interpret " 
Scripture  so  as  to  make  it  contain  the  sys- 
tem and  teach  the  doctrines.  This  is  the 
reverse  of  the  true  method.  If  we  have  faith 
in  the  Bible  we  shall  show  it,  not  by  constru- 
ing it  to  support  our  preconceived  opinions, 
but  by  forming  our  opinions  on  the  model 
of  its  teachings. 

4.  It  must  not  be  inferred  from  the  array 


REVELATION.  85 

of  critical  appliances  mentioned,  and  the  tools 
of  knowledge  said  to  be  used  by  the  exegete, 
that  only  the  vastly  and  variously  learned  can 
understand  the  Bible.  It  is  not  the  scholar's 
but  the  people's  book.  The  greater  part  of  it 
is  readily  intelligible  to  the  uneducated.  In- 
deed, if  no  bias  is  in  the  mind  of  the  reader, 
and  he  reads  to  understand,  as  he  would  his- 
tory, poetry,  precept  elsewhere,  there  will  be 
but  small  liability  of  misapprehension.  In  re- 
spect of  all  the  more  vital  facts  and  instruc- 
tions this  is  particularly  true.  Yet,  as  the 
Bible  was  recorded  originally  in  languages 
with  which  scholars  only  are  now  familiar, 
and  as  its  whole  wonderful  history  and  its 
minutest  particles  have  been  subjected  to  the 
closest  scrutiny  by  generations  of  Biblical  spe- 
cialists, the  wise  student  of  this  most  marvel- 
lous of  books  will  not  commit  himself  to  an 
opinion  in  regard  to  any  obscure  matter  until 
he  has  aided  his  own  insight  by  the  fuller  and 
more  exact  knowledge  of  the  learned ;  while 
in  regard  to  great  and  weighty  doctrines  af- 
fecting the  faith  and  life,  or  questions  of  mo- 
ment which  are  also  matters  of  controversy,  it 
would  be  natural  that  he  should  feel  stronger 


86  REVELATION. 

if  his   own  views   were   supported  by  the  con- 
sensus of  scholarship. 


XII.  —  Authority  of  Scripture. 

Closely  related  to  the  question  of  the  inter- 
pretation is  the  question  of  the  authority  of 
Scripture.  The  ^os^Reformation  divines  oc- 
cupied a  position  in  regard  to  this  subject 
which  it  must  be  confessed  gave  them  great 
advantage  over  their  less  rigorous  successors. 
They  held  to  the  complete  verbal  inspiration 
of  the  books  of  the  Bible.  As  every  jot  and 
tittle  was  the  word  of  God  equally  with  the 
weightiest  deliverance  of  Jesus,  the  question 
of  authority  was  very  simple.  Any  declara- 
tion of  Scripture,  and  every  declaration,  must 
command  instant  respect  and  require  unques- 
tioning obedience.  As  matter  of  fact  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  more  persons  received  the 
word  with  reverence  or  heeded  it  with  alac- 
rity. But  the  theory  was  simple,  easily 
expounded,  and  quickly  understood.  The 
reasonable  view,  which  we  have  presented  in 
these  pages,  does  not  admit  of  so  simple  ap- 
plication.    It   requires   us   to   take   account  of 


REVELATION.  87 

*'  the  human  element "  in  the  Bible,  of  histori- 
cal and  biographical  errors,  of  discrepancies  of 
fact,  of  mistaken  opinions,  as  well  as  of  poe- 
try, tradition,  and  the  sayings  of  uninspired 
and  wicked  men,  that  sprinkle  the  record. 

1.  What  authority,  it  may  be  asked,  can 
such  a  book  claim  ;  and  what  authority  is  it 
fitted  to  command  ?  We  do  not  pretend  to 
be  able  to  give  a  direct  and  unqualified  an- 
swer to  this  inquiry.  The  most  we  can  safely 
and  sincerely  say,  is,  that  we  have  never  met 
a  case  of  actual  difficulty,  —  a  case,  that  is, 
where  some  one  wished  to  know  what  degree 
of  authority  should  be  accorded  a  given  pas- 
sage of  Scripture,  but  could  not  ascertain.  In 
all  practical  exigencies  we  believe  the  answer 
is  clear  and  satisfying.  The  instructions  of 
Christ,  the  reasonings  of  Paul,  the  "thus 
saith  Jehovah "  of  Isaiah,  are  generally  plain 
enough ;  and  every  rational  and  reverent  soul 
feels  that  they  are  of  different  degrees  of  au- 
thority. If  in  respect  of  these  and  similar 
portions  of  the  record,  which  are  obviously  of 
the  highest  value,  there  is  no  practical  diffi- 
culty in  determining  the  relative  degree  of 
imperativeness,   how   much    more    readily   will 


88  REVELATION. 

the  imagined  obstacles  disappear  in  the  case  of 
the  Chronicles,  Esther,  and  the  Apocalypse ! 

2.  But  the  inquirer  may  wish  to  know 
whether  any  portion  of  the  record  is  of  abso- 
lute authority  ;  and  if  so,  what  is  the  test  for 
determining  it.  We  should  answer  to  the 
first  part  of  the  question  :  Yes,  large  portions 
of  the  Bible  are  of  absolute  autliority,  and  the 
Bible  as  a  whole  is  of  such  autliority ;  that 
is,  a  man  has  no  right  to  believe  or  teach 
religious  doctrines  not  found  in  the  Bible ; 
and  contrariwise  he  has  a  right  to  believe 
and  do  what  the  Bible  as  a  whole  clearly 
sanctions. 

To  the  second  part  of  the  question  we 
should  reply,  The  test  must  be  found  in  these 
three  things :  (1)  Is  the  teaching  the  un- 
doubted word  of  the  Lord,  or  of  Jesus  Christ, 
or  of  an  apostle,  or  of  some  other  inspired 
teacher  ?  (2)  Does  it  commend  itself  to  the 
reason  and  the  moral  sense  ?  (3)  Does  it  vin- 
dicate and  verify  itself  as  the  truth  of  God 
by  proving,  on  trial,  to  be  for  the  highest 
good  of  men  ?  It  may  not  be  possible  to  ap- 
ply all  of  these  ;  it  will  in  most  cases  be  prac- 
ticable to  apply  two  of  them  j  and  a  degree  of 


REVELATION.  89 

authority  which  no  right-minded  person  will 
venture  to  disregard  must  be  accorded  to  any 
Scripture  that  abides  one  of  these  tests. 

3.  It  is  to  be  distinctly  recognized  that  the 
claim  to  authority  over  human  opinion  and 
conduct  of  any  alleged  revelation  must  submit 
to  review  and  decision  by  the  human  facul- 
ties. If  we  accept  the  authority,  as  much  as 
when  we  reject  it,  we  do  so  by  the  use  of  the 
only  instruments  we  possess  for  reaching  a 
conclusion  on  any  subject.  There  is,  there- 
fore, not  only  no  prohibition  of  the  use  of  our 
reason  on  the  problems  of  revelation,  there  is 
a  distinct  command,  announced  in  our  consti- 
tution, to  use  this  prerogative.  It  is  quite  true 
that  we  may  mistake;  but  there  is  no  help  for 
it.  Our  consolation  is  in  the  certainty  that 
we  should  more  grievously  mistake,  and  inex- 
cusably too,  if  we  attempted  to  decide  so 
grave  a  matter  without  reason. 

XIII.  —  Conclusion. 

We  have  endeavored  to  show  what  revela- 
tion in  general  includes,  and  to  set  forth, 
without  using  technical  language,  what  sound 
and  reverent  scholarship  authorizes  us  to  hold 


90  REVELATION. 

as  the  truth  concerning  the  Holy  Scriptures  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  We  have  been 
obliged  to  omit  much  more  relating  to  our 
subject  than  we  have  found  room  for.  Our 
judgment  is  that  we  have  selected  that  which 
is  most  relevant,  timely,  and  important.  The 
greatness  of  the  theme,  its  transcendent  inter- 
est, and  the  vastness  of  the  material,  impress 
us  powerfully  with  the  smallness  of  our  achieve- 
ment. But  it  has  been  a  high  satisfaction  to 
snatch  a  few  hours  from  a  crowded  round  of 
daily  duties,  to  commend  anew,  and  in  the 
fair  outlines  supplied  by  modern  knowledge,  a 
Book  that  is  the  choicest  literary  inheritance 
of  the  human  race,  unequalled  as  a  store- 
house of  the  wisdom  that  comes  from  above, 
and  without  a  rival  in  the  beneficent  influence 
it  exerts  over  the  mixed  scene  of  earthly  sor- 
row, sin,  and  joy. 


University  Press:   John  Wilson  &  Son,  Cambridge. 


Princeton  Theological  S«minary-Speer  Library 


1012  01144  7069 


